house on fire

February 7, 2008 at 10:32 am (destruction, grace, mystery, reflection)

the house next door caught on fire the other night. at first, i didn’t think much about the sirens, since i live a block away from the fire station and hear the trucks all day long. then i realized they were crowding the street in front of my house.

then i smelled the smoke.

the house next door is ten feet from mine. i live in a dense, urban area. i looked out the window and saw gray smoke rolling out of the basement windows and creeping out of the cracks in the windows upstairs. i started feeling panicky as i heard the firemen smashing windows and talking on their radios.

i never saw flames.

the smell of smoke built up for a while. i worried about my sleeping children and wondered if we would have to leave. these houses are old and made of brick, so i wasn’t too worried about the fire spreading. it crossed my mind but i put that thought quickly aside. fortunately the wind was blowing the smoke away from us and we were able to get some fresh, cold air from the south side.

no one was hurt. no one lives there. the house has been sitting empty for almost two years. our former neighbors got a “great deal” in the suburbs and moved away. they were unable to sell the remaining house though and it slipped into foreclosure. someone had just purchased it and was starting to renovate. now it’s a burned out shell.

i was just starting to make peace with the idea that we were going to give up the dream of a simpler, more natural life. i was beginning to commit to living in the city and tolerating the intensity of sound, smell and other stimulation. my dream of the small town with a more relaxed lifestyle was fading and the THE HOUSE BURNS?

don’t get me wrong. i am so grateful that no one was hurt and that things are relatively fine but i was excited about the renovation. excited at the possibility that there would be an improvement to the neighborhood, that someone finally cared about the old beauty. now i wonder what will happen. will it sit there empty and burned, continuing a vortex of energy that never gets resolved?

what does it all mean? is it an omen? am i supposed to make meaning out of it?

maybe there is no meaning…just a random, life-changing event for someone else.

i wish i knew.