Sunday, July 10, 2022

Jan’s Fire Rant

    On September 8, 2020 gusts of wind brought sudden and unwelcomed change that burned down my entire neighborhood and a large portion of our town.  I am struggling with a literal firewall to the past. My senses no longer have access to my home though my mind still cherishes every inch of it. There is a death-like bracket around unresolved matters and unfinished tasks. In my displacement from home, I struggle with being busy rather than with building and maintaining my own nest.  My relationship to “things” ranges from hostile to acquiescence as I bow to my needs.

    I want to walk to Ray’s and see people I know. I want to buy a lottery ticket there. I want to breath in the familiar and ride my bike with the fluorescent pink rims on the gently inclined streets of Talent.  I miss the greeting of my garden that signaled admission into my world.  I want to walk under the living willow arch near my front door that took years to braid and twist into shape and to smell the Daphne I planted 6 years ago. I want to see my neighbor’s liquor bottles in the recycling bins where I parked my car. I want my children’s faces captured by the camera all over my walls. I want to enter the delicate bubble of remembrance as I leaf through my photo albums. I want to hear the drums of Africa in the weavings and sculptures I collected from there. 

    I long for sewing projects that have piled up over the years – dresses still pinned to the pattern that I never made, embroidery designs still in the hoop, pants that need to be hemmed. I want my historical research to be at my fingertips when I write a story. I want the guilt of never doing enough with what I already had and at the same time digging deeper into my research and making new files.  I want to paint on an empty canvas. I want to see my teenage granddaughters every day and take them to school even when they are non-communicative and sullen.

    I want the sheets of the past to bed in. How can I possible replace the ratty old nightgown that I wore to bed but somehow it always ended up on the floor by morning? The handmade baskets that filled every corner of my house in Talent made perfect combustion.  Though there is something poetic about journals and love letters going up in flames, their passion (and stupidity) will never be revealed – their memories burned at the stake.


Jan lived on Gangnes Drive in Talent. After the fire she was fortunate enough to find a place to rent in Medford.  

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Intro

     The purpose of this blog is to document the history of the Almeda Fire. To protect contributors, we have intentionally not allowed comm...