Summer – stay or go
October 29th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Yesterday it was 28 gorgeous degrees and after a long stretch of rainy days, it seemed everyone I encountered that day was opening up again to life, like little blooms in the sun.
Just after 4pm I drove to the next village, windows down, the smell of earth and gum leaf, that quintessential bush summer fragrance permeating the air.
And then, faintly, almost as an afterthought, was the unmistakable scent of smoke in the air. My heart immediately started to race and a too familiar anxiety returned, one that was a hallmark of Summer 2009.
I live in the mountains. Last summer we evacuated 4 times, the first exodus at 5.30 pm on the afternoon of Black Saturday, with blackened ash falling on our home.
I choose to live in the bush, have done so for almost 10 years. It’s a wonderfully simple lifestyle in which a deep sense of community grows alongside fresh produce, families and a sense of happiness that escaped me in my ‘city life’ years.
Summer is usually a much anticipated season in our village, as it is for most people, most places. Long days spent floating on the river with friends, dropping into Café Meccanica for a coffee, gathering at our favorite swimming hole for beers and rolls of butchers paper brimming with chips, cool under the blissful coverage of fern and mountain shadow. It’s a wonderful time, and whilst I appreciate the severity of fire danger, lives and homes lost in the past, and a stay or go policy (we go), I find myself making a conscious decision to enjoy the coming summer full heartedly, not fool heartedly.
For my community, the river is the central focus of life, a meeting spot which serves the most primal of instincts to gather, to share, to immerse in the cool waters and to be in life.
So I feel sad when I think people will stay away, that the anxiety I felt today will be our collective experience as the weather heats up. I was not prepared for the unease a little waft of smoke inflamed in me and I imagine that I am not alone in this. Memories of February 09, a kind of post traumatic stress response, instilled by many days of watching and waiting to see which fire might turn our way.
Thankfully we were spared this time. But the unspoken words that hang behind every fire plan are the fear that eventually, it will be our turn.
Ever the optimist, I must also believe that all will be OK, and we can enjoy a long languid summer day without panic.
This is a choice I make.
To live without fear.
To live with Fire.
Its never really been any different.
