HELL IN PARADISE

by Melodie Johnson Howe

There has to be a hell in paradise because if there weren’t one there’d be no reason for writers exist.

The day before the Tea Fire (Montecito/Santa Barbara area) my doctor put me on steroids. When I asked him what the side affects were, he told me I may become emotional and hungry. I immediately thought of Scarlett O’Hara. Of course neither of us knew that our world was about to explode into flames the following night.

Hungry is the same for most people. But emotional can vary with the individual. In my case emotional was very, very, very hyper. It was early evening and I was buzzing around the kitchen listening to the Sundowners (the name for Santa Ana winds in Santa Barbara ) blast down the canyons and rattling our doors and windows. I was preparing dinner. Gayle Lynds called me and told me to turn on the TV– that we were on fire. I did and she was right. I ran into Bones office.

“We’re on fire! We’re on fire!” I tried to stop yelling this but I couldn’t.

We went out to our front yard and looked up at the mountains. North of us flames were leaping high against a black sky. Above us our eucalyptus trees were twisting and bending in the powerful hot wind. I could feel its force grabbing my hair and pulling me backwards.

“We’re okay. The wind is blowing west-south-west.”

Suddenly my husband has turned into a compass.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I can see the way the trees and smoke are blowing.”

“Winds change, they can blow back toward us.” I buzz over to our garden hose. I’m ready to put the entire fire out. Even in my hyper state I realize how pathetic my gesture is.

We decide to move our cars down the driveway near the entrance so if we evacuate they’re facing in the right direction. Now we see helicopters in the night sky racing over the fire. The sound of fire engines fill the air.

Back in the house Bones has a map on the kitchen table and is showing me where the fire is. There is something calming about the map. There is no wind on it. There is no fire on it. Just a line depicting the mountain ridge. Smaller lines representing streets. But the streets have homes on them. And we know people who live in some of those homes. They are being evacuated as we trace the fire on the map. Outside the wind roars crashing trash bins and banging gates.

My daughter calls and tells me I must prepare to evacuate even if they haven’t told me to. She lives in Santa Clarita and has faced this terror before.

“Just get boxes,” she commands, “and begin to put the things in them. And leave your cell phone on. You never leave your phone on. In fact put it on the charger so it will be ready if you have to leave.” Like her child I obey.

“The fire is still blowing away from us,” Bones says, watching the television then studying the map.

I get the dogs’ leashes and put them on the kitchen table. They leap up thinking they’re going for a walk. I take out the insurance book that contains pictures of our possessions. It’s an austere list of objects and how much they are worth. I place it on the kitchen table. I get a baggie and put our medications in it. Then I buzz to a stop. A complete whip-lashing, skidding halt. I am overwhelmed. I stand, paralyzed, staring at the paintings on the living room walls. I know I’m not going to take them down. I know I’m going to let them go. I walk into the library and run my hands over my books. I don’t know where to begin. We don’t have room for all of them in the cars.

I wrote a column once about how I would only take my books if there were a fire. But I was a writer writing. Now I am a woman confronting danger and loss. I will let these go too, I finally admit to myself. I wander into my office. I will take my work.

In the bedroom I pull out my favorite paisley wrap scarf. And a diamond stick pin in the shape of a gun. Bones gave it to me when my first novel was published. I place these objects on top of the dog leashes.

“We’re okay,” he says. “It’s definitely moving away from us.”

That night we slept in out clothes. Every few hours Bones would get up and walk around the outside of the house then return to bed assuring me we were fine. And we were. We were lucky. The wind didn’t change direction. We have dear friends who have lost everything.

The next morning I stared at the small pile of objects I had decided to take with me. They had a logic to them. And they had no logic to them. Doesn’t every woman need a diamond stick pin and a paisley scarf when she’s fleeing a fire? But that is what I had chosen. Maybe I wanted something pretty to hold while standing in the ashes.