Fire-Forged

It’s amazing how perspective can shift in a week.

Just a few days ago, the hot news in the headlines was the defeat of a soccer powerhouse. The U.S. Women’s World Cup team – two-time defending champions! –  made their earliest ever departure from the tournament, knocked out by Sweden in a game that came down to a fraction of an inch. For a team that had never finished lower than third, this was a Moment, one that could not be looked away from.

I’d planned to write about that moment. And then came the unthinkable words.

“Maui’s on fire.”

By now, we’ve all seen the photos, read the headlines. Lahaina burned to the ground. At least 80 dead as I write this, surely more now. Stark scenes from a place of beauty, transformed into devastation.

In a weird way, the news was all too familiar. Every Coloradan knows much too much about wildfires and the destruction they can bring. With just a spark in the wrong place, the whole grim parade of events can start anew: evacuations, containment efforts, choking air, the memories of a lifetime reduced to ash.  

It’s lit the Mountain West over and over, seared itself into our brains and our reflexes. The smell of smoke, imprinted on a state’s DNA.

This summer, we’d actually allowed ourselves to breathe a bit. After all, this year we had rain. And rain. And rain again. High rivers and flooding produce their own dangers, of course (don’t we know THAT well?) but at least one old enemy could be kept at bay for a while.

So when those old painful images reappeared, this time in the heart of an island paradise, it seemed surreal. Even that word doesn’t go far enough, I know, for those who have ties to Hawaii … an out-of-place nightmare made far too real.

There’s a lot that’s still ahead. There always is. Disaster only seems to know two speeds: heartbreakingly fast when it’s in the moment and painstakingly slow in the days and weeks and months after, as people try to recover, rebuild and learn just what the heck happened.

But as Maui’s story continues, there’s one other shadow of the past that’s been revived. A welcome one.

In every disaster, we re-learn the meaning of the word “neighbor.” Not just the person whose property happens to bump against yours, but the person who needs help that you can give. Time and again, we rise up to help someone else rise.

Some have given money. Some have given sweat. People have reached out to schools, to families, to animal shelters. And in every act, large and small, we do more than rebuild an area. We rebuild ourselves as well – the idea that wherever we are, whoever we may be, we share a tie that makes us one.

We recognize a common pain. And in meeting it together, we make all of us stronger.

It’s a Moment. One worth more than any championship.

The cameras will eventually move on. That’s the nature of news and of human attention. But it’s not the end of the story. And it should never be the end of that spirit.

We’re a community. A family. A team.

And whatever lies ahead, we’ll pass through the fire together.   

2020, Get Me Rewrite

Not long ago, a friend posted a cartoon where the unspeakable horror Cthulhu arises from the sea … side-by-side with Godzilla doing the same.

“How strange 2020 is ….” Cthulhu mutters as the confused monsters try to untangle their schedules, just in time for the planet-eating Galactus of Marvel Comics to make an apologetic appearance.

“Ahem – am I early?”

No, sir. This year, you’re par for the course.

In a way, this year feels like 1989-1990 in reverse. Back then, every headline seemed to bring news that was amazing beyond belief. The Berlin Wall came down. The Soviet Union broke up. Nelson Mandela walked free. The World Wide Web took its first baby steps.  Absolutely anything seemed to be possible (which made it all the more devastating when the Tiananmen Square protests in China went so terribly wrong).

Today? Well, we’re amazed all right. Or is “stunned” a better choice of words? It says something about the present day when horrific wildfires on the Western Slope are the most normal thing that’s happened all year.

No wonder a new “Bill and Ted” movie sounds so good. Who doesn’t want a time-traveling phone booth right now?

I’ve seen some people joke about living in a horror story. To be honest, they’re not far off the mark.

And that’s more hopeful than you might think.

Horror has two key qualities: uncertainty and isolation. You know something’s coming for you, but you don’t have all the information – it’s out there, ready to come at any time, just beyond sight, building the tension. And you’re facing it alone. Maybe you’re in an isolated place, or cut off by a disaster, or simply in a situation where no one else believes you, but for whatever reason, no help is coming.

Alone in the dark. It’s the core of every scary story since campfire days.

But if you change those qualities, you break the story’s power.

Uncertainty’s the harder one. We plan and strategize and arm ourselves with information, and it undoubtedly helps. But none of us have yet been gifted (cursed?) with the ability to see the future, so our extrapolations only take us so far. That’s not an excuse for not planning, of course – just an admission that reality can be even stranger than our imaginations.

The real key is in isolation.

That’s going to sound ironic in a year where social distancing can save lives. But while physical isolation is crucial to survival, mental isolation is deadly. That’s when we stop being a community and turn into a collection of despairing or self-centered individuals.

Alone, we’re overwhelmed.

Together, we can make it.

We make it by thinking of the safety of others and not just our own ability to tough it out.

We make it by reaching out to friends and neighbors and finding ways to help.

We make it by breaking down the anger and fear that drive us into a corner and reaching for a hope that can open doors.

We make it by being us. By caring. By standing behind others when they need us, and being able to trust that someone will stand behind us, too.

It’s not easy. It takes more than just misty optimism. We have to work and build, not just wait for everything to magically get better.

But if we do that – if we look to our neighbor and do what needs doing – something pretty wonderful can arise.

Maybe it’ll even be in time for Godzilla.

Harmony of Hope

As music poured from the speakers, Missy danced. And squirmed. And smiled.

How could she not? Her favorites, the Face Vocal Band, were back on the microphone.

Well, in a way.

Like everyone else, Boulder County’s own a cappella rock band had been pushed off the concert stage and into shelter by COVID-19. And like so many performers, they were finding a work-around  – a periodic livestream that mixed behind-the-scenes commentary and familiar videos, each time culminating in the debut of a brand new piece.

By itself, that would be more than enough to keep the flame burning in the hearts of the Face-ful followers. But on Friday night, Face cheated.

It’s really not fair to bring in magic, too.

“From now on … these eyes will not be blinded by the lights …”

The tune would be familiar to many: the showstopping “From Now On” from the movie musical “The Greatest Showman.” Face was supposed to be bringing that song to Carnegie Hall, backed by a mighty community chorus. Instead, they were bringing it to the world, voices stitched together from a myriad of homes as band, chorus, and fans united in the only way they could.

At any time, it would have been a beautiful song. But at this time – blended with images of joy, hope and togetherness from the families of their fans everywhere – it did more than sing. It resonated. And as the hook repeated over and over, I realized for a moment that sometimes life really does have a soundtrack:

“And we will come back home, and we will come back home, home again …”

Isn’t that what we’re all waiting for?

OK, put like that, it might sound a little strange. After all, we’re all spending a lot more time at home lately than any of us had planned on. Some are climbing the walls while others are bunking down in introverted peace, but surely all of us are looking to the day when home can be a base instead of a world. Aren’t we?

Well, yes and no.

Sure, most of us want the front door to open again for something that isn’t a weekly grocery trip. But home is more than a living space. It’s a mental space. It’s a life that we know and recognize, a state of mind where we know how things fit and where we belong.

That home has been distant for quite a while now. We want it back. And we sometimes fear how little of it may remain, how much may have changed beyond recognition.

I can’t claim a gift of prophecy. I don’t know what the far end of this looks like any more than you do. But I suspect we’ll keep more than we think.

And that’s because we’ve already kept more than we know.

When everything familiar is taken away, it puts the essentials in a spotlight. There’s time to see what’s really important and what was just noise.

Maybe that’s why, even in the midst of so much isolation, we’re still finding ways to be together.

I’m not blindly optimistic. I know there’s anger and debate and contention – I do have a social media account, after all. But I’m constantly struck by how many people are doing so much to add a little beauty, humor and hope to the world. Not because they’re ignoring the situation – is it ignoring the darkness to light a candle?- but because it’s what we do. As friends. As neighbors. As people.

We help. We listen. We howl in the night. And yes, sometimes we sing.

And through all of it, we heal.

Yes. We will come back home again. Not unchanged. But not alone. And when we do – that will truly be a time to dance.

Missy is ready.

You can see it in her Face.