sorry tales

nee-naw-nee-naw went the red fire engine.
the siren sounded loud and i turned to see it flash red passed our window. and then again. and then again.
-that was close, remarked a visiting friend. yes, very close. closer inspection via our back window revealed great swathes of black smoke bellowing across the sky.
yikes!
as all good neighbours and naturally curious people do, we were obliged to go and have a closer look.
the three fire engines were parked at viscious angles across the road, hoses transporting water, but not fast enough, to the flames that were belching from the red hot tin roof. men yelled instructions while a crowd watched, mesmorised. i saw a man, not dressed in the traditional firefighters uniform (but wearing soot all the same), helping to move a hose and then give up. he looked to the gods and then to his feet as he walked in sadness away from his home, the flames and the gathering crowd.

this punctuated the week of tsunami warnings, earthquakes and unseasonal snowfalls that left more than just my neighbour a little sad.

all but my neighbour's stories carry the wrath of the earth under their breath...
but, all the same, my neighbour's story needs an audience. it's a story i know i shall learn a little from. it's the story of one man, cold, trying to warm his house against the unseasonal cold front. the story of a man using wet wood in his fire place, a man who couldn't/wouldn't chop the wood smaller, or maybe did, but still decided to use kerosene to get the flames jumping.
and jump they did.
onto his hands. he spilt the kerosene. he ran to the kitchen, dripping the kerosene and flames in his wake. by the time he'd washed his hands and relieved his light burns he turned to see his floor alight.
he fought this fire only to find once extinguished that he could still hear the flames roaring- but not in the fire place.
within minutes that hungry fire, having turned its nose up at the wet wood, had licked, devilishly, the camping equipment stored too closely to the fire, the walls, the ceiling... a fire doesn't wait to taste a wooden house.
dialling 1-1-1 calls the local volunteers, but by that time the sorry tale was already spun.

our week of bagpacking, of warnings and practice runs, of forecast snow but not forecast woe has sent me a couple of lessons on the way.
namely, some times you can't plan for an emergency, but you can be prepared. not necessarily just by knowing where your keys are, or where your passport is, but by simply knowing that your loved ones know that you love them.
and secondly, there are no short cuts. time can not be saved, i am sure of that. it always seems, to me, when i try and do something a little simpler, or quicker, it goes wrong. i break the thing. or it bends, or i spill it. all things are meant to take the length of time they take. not even instant means instant, and anyway, if the opposite of instant is time-consuming, maybe it's actually worth investing the time, if it's worth doing.
and finally, despite everything, shit happens. and it happens to everyone. all the time. and sometimes being the best prepared person in the whole entire world, it might just happen to you as well.

as well as being prepared, we need to just be. now. be happy, be sad, be jubilant, be angry, be jealous, or outraged, or guilty.
but it's better to simply be,
or be simple.
xx
mama b
(trying hard to just live in the here and now)