A House Fire

I know how this story turns out a year later. This is a latergram. Filling in a digital scrapbook.

I’ve never had a major house problem or any serious dislocation, so in that regard, lucky. Writing from the future (January 2021), we still have not solved this— medical complications followed, then our move downtown while the architects began their work, then the pandemic bringing everything to a stop, only to find that with everyone home, contractors are busier than ever and the price of everything has gone up. We could move back home with plastic on the ceiling and tarps on the house but must move again to being the repair work, and none of the options have me 100% excited.

I have learned that I have reached a point in my brain and energy that disruption is extremely problematic.

We were lucky the fire started on the outside. The fire inspectors thought it was old party lights arching on the metal gutter. Evidently, a couple of neighbors had seen it start and tried to put it out with a garden house. Thankfully the propane tank for the BBQ did not explode. I had just gotten to the lake for what I assumed might be the last swim of the season and was putting my silenced phone into the glove box when I noticed the many messages that our house was on fire. I came home to find twenty-six fire trucks here, and the streets blocked, but the fire out and everyone going home.

Writing from the future, I will say this has been and will continue to be an exhausting thing to solve well into Thanksgiving of 2021.