After the Flood Came the Fire

The forest is coming to life again, even against the backdrop of Helene’s damage, and I need to tell you what that means for those of us still here. Why? Because our climate disaster is yours, and because when yours comes, it will also be ours. Half a year following Helene, there is so much beauty sprung from anguish. It’s important to pay witness to the truth between those extremes.

There are so many phases to life after a disaster; I’m not sure it’s possible to prepare for life in a disaster zone in the same ways we are advised to prepare ahead of time for the disaster itself. Our community is still in the thick of the recovery process. I’ll speak only for myself here, although I’ve spoken with neighbors who echo the same:

• I have moved past the recordkeeping/hoarding of images/reliving-it-even-when-it-hurts phase.
• I have moved past survivor’s guilt.
• I have moved past the phase of obsessive volunteering (multiple times per week amidst an already full life). To date, more than 6 million cubic yards of debris have been cleared from public right of ways and more than 2 million cubic yards of debris have been removed from our waterways…a start.
• And as of yesterday, I have moved past the phase of refusing to get close to the South Toe River. I went into the water that killed people and livelihoods. I went all the way under. I held my son’s hand as he did the same. When I came up, I yawned five times in a row.*

But I (and my closest parent-friends) still worry about being able to protect our families. A few weeks ago, we packed evacuation bags yet again, as Yancey County declared a state of emergency and sent special notices to the Celo and Cattail communities to be on alert. Nearby wildfires posed not only the expected threats, but additional severe threats because the bridges and roadways we lost to Helene mean that there is only one main exit out of the valley – a two-lane highway that cannot securely evacuate the entire population. Smoke, heat, drought, fear, fact-finding—it was all systems go, all over again…cat carriers, passports, hard drives, my grandmother’s ring, you name it. We would rather be called fools and evacuate early, than be in a traffic jam surrounded by flames and believe me…there is a lot of wood around here that’s dry and deadly.

But now…on to the things that ground me: that dimple when River smiles, the azaleas and arugula, the last sunbeams as they pour over Deep Gap and stripe the sky in gold, the simple pleasure of silent reading. If daily living means horrible headlines, insane grocery prices, injustices at the office, and legitimate fear of climate disasters, then our private rituals of care and connection must become the steadying force. Rather than antidotes to a bad day or something we do for self-care, prioritizing care of our nervous systems and the bodies and minds that live alongside us, must become our NEW NORMAL. Care first! Care as foundation; care as a throughline. Then what? Then those headlines and prices and injustices and disasters can be met with our whole, rested, autonomous selves as we shift from defensive postures to generative, co-creative action.

I’ve shared a lot about what’s tender and in recovery for us already. I’d like to assure you that, like so many of you who are reading this and who have been emailing me, we are riding the waves and feeling the effects. The highs are high. The lows are low. We’re determined to shift from a survivalist, defensive posture to sustainable, generative responsiveness. It’s not perfect; perfect isn’t the point. It’s what life is asking of us all right now, and if you’re reading this and feeling all the feels, you’re not alone.

So here are a few snapshots to balance the floods and fires – literal and metaphorical: Brad and River fishing for smallmouth bass on the North Fork of the Holston River, Dango the supercat showing me how to relax, and River and myself after our first re-engagement with the South Toe River since Helene.

* Yawning can be interpreted as a sign that our parasympathetic nervous system is coming on board, especially when we have been in a sympathetic fight/flight state for a prolonged period of time.

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