My brother, who still lives not too far from where we grew up, was the one to notify the rest of our family that our old home had burned down. My brother kept getting calls from his old friends to say, "Dude, your old house burned down." But I was the one to go online and find this video of it, which my family found ironic, that the person living farthest away was the one to find this:
For weeks I'd watch this several times a day, crying the whole time. I watched our family room up go (that's where the flashover is), saw my brother's bedroom reduced to a bare burnt scaffold. My kids would wander into our office and see me watching the video and say to one another "Mom's watching her house burn down again."
I knew that this image would end up in a poem, and last night it finally did. Which prompted me to get out the video, which I haven't watched for quite awhile, and watch and weep all over again.
7 comments:
I never saw your house but I absolutely remember your address from correspondence sent back and forth (since we are old and lived WAY before email). I understand thought the sense of loss, when I get the chance I go see the houses we lived in when I was young. Look forward to seeing the poem.
Hey Leslie, Yes, I know your old Colorado addresses by heart too....Isn't it funny that we can have a connection to a place we've never been?
Such a trauma, and to have it available on the Internet to relive on demand... but I'm glad it's made its way into a poem, which is what art provides: a transformational space.
Art as a transformational space, yes! Thank you, Mari, for the reminder.
(My house burning down looks rather like the cover of your book, doesn't it?)
Now that you mention it, it kind of does. : ) or : (
And fire is transformational, too. Still, a great loss. But out of loss comes something new. Always. Even if that something new isn't apparent for a long time.
And my loss is only psychological...the poor family living in the house....
And yes, something new has come, and will probably continue coming!
Hooray!
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