Don't Wait. EVACUATE NOW. 5 Lessons I've Learned From a Mandatory Evacuation

I remember reading the news the last few years about the raging fires all through Northern California and my heart ached for those losing everything and even worse, those that lost ones they love. Nobody ever thinks a natural disaster is going to affect them until it does.

The last few days have been increasingly stressful as once again a fire rapidly destroys parts of Sonoma County. It’s been really easy for me to stick my head in the sand when something is happening just out of reach from me but these latest Kincade fires ripped through this area threatening to bring the fires west which has made it now my reality.

And this reality feels helpless.

I don’t like the feeling of helpless. The feeling that very little is actually in my control and that feeling is never more present than right now.

Saturday I woke eager and excited to begin my day in a home I have recently come to realize I love very much. By the evening around 7:15 PM, I was getting a loud text alert telling me to EVACUATE NOW.

As I mentioned in this Instagram post, I am neither a fight or flight person in times of stress. I am a freeze person. My breath catches, my heart begins to race and I lose all ability to reason and think normally. I called my mom and told her I just got the notice that I had to leave and she coached me through the process. When we hung up she must have quickly made phone calls to my family because my brothers began to send texts helping me too.

I frantically packed up whatever I felt was most important to me and loaded my belongings and my beloved pets in my car to head to a friend’s farm just outside of the danger zone. All while realizing just how unprepared I am for an emergency. Something I plan on changing when I return back to my yurt.

Before I left, I stood in my yurt and looked around at the life I have slowly rebuilt for myself over the last six years and I couldn’t believe that with one shift of the wind, it could all be destroyed. I thanked my home for the comfort and support it has given me and walked outside closing and locking the door behind me. I placed the palm of my my hand on the door for a moment and closed my eyes and said a quick prayer, not knowing if I’d ever return. That, that is a very strange feeling.

Saturday night was a sleepless one and I woke at 4 AM to gusts of wind that shook the windows of the grannie suite I was sleeping in outback behind my friend’s sweet little farmhouse as cars rushed by still evacuating from miles around us. Tears filled my eyes as I started to realize how small and powerless we really are when it comes to mother nature. If she wants to take something, she can and will.

The tears began to fall as I thought more about how I had just turned a corner. How I came back from working on a custom piece in Encinitas the following week and saw this place with new eyes. It wasn’t that I didn’t love and respect this new home of mine already but now it actually felt like HOME. I had turned the transitional corner from the new place I was living to it becoming truly home and now it was being threatened.

As the day went on my anxiety lessened as we started to realize the reality of the fire spreading to where I live was very slim and my insides calmed down a bit. But that doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t hurt for those that have lost everything or that I’m a bit rattled and displaced from this experience. It does and I am.

Later in the afternoon my friend Jenny and I took our dogs on a walk around her property and watched the smoke lined sky in the distance start to encroach on our afternoon stroll. Her daughter said it best. “It feels like we are in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.” And it does. It feels eerie and unsettling and awfully quiet in this community of mine.

By Monday the Kincade fire had spread to destroying 65,000 acres and was still only 5% contained but Zone 7, where my home is located, got word that we could go home if we felt safe to do so. Power still hadn’t been restored and still hasn’t as I write this on Tuesday so I decided to continue staying at my friend’s in Petaluma until power and cell service is back on in the west part of the region. This however is looking like Thursday as we prepare for another windstorm today (Tuesday) until tomorrow morning.

So here we are. Waiting. And all I can do is surrender. Once again.

All of this has taught me some pretty significant things and continue to do so. And once again I find myself in awe at how often it takes the hard knocks of life to point out the big things we need to review and change. Here they are:

1) Don’t wait to leave. Even if it seem unnecessary and inconvenient, the authorities have their reasons. Trust me, they aren’t trying to make your life hard. That is the last thing they wish to do. But if you stay, you are putting yourself and those who would have to rescue you in danger and that is selfish. Don’t wait. Leave.

2) Plan for an emergency. You better believe I am going to be putting together an emergency kit when I get back to my yurt. This includes a plan of action, a kit and a small box of all my most valuable items that is quick and easy to grab. I’ll be posting about this soon!

3) Build a community. If it wasn’t for my friends here, I’m not sure where I would have gone. I’m so grateful to Jenny and John for opening up there home and to my friend Rachael who has offered up her home as well as a few of her family member’s homes for myself, Louie and Baker. These people in my life are amazing and I will forever be grateful.

4) Be grateful and live more in the moment. I have a tendency to get caught up in the past or pine for the future. Something had shifted when I returned from Encinitas last week. I felt more present. More confident and happy where I was. I was releasing old things and felt in such alignment. This is making me realize how important it is to be in that space. Be in that space. In the now. It’s a good place to be.

5) Yes it’s just ‘stuff’ but it’s our lives too. It’s easy for people to stay “it’s just stuff. You can get new stuff.” However, it’s okay to feel sad about the possibility of losing it all. It’s your whole life and rebuilding is hard. However, don’t go too far down the rabbit hole because lives do mean more. And in the end, this has made me realize how much I love where I am and how grateful I am for what I have built.

Overall I feel so lucky and blessed. I feel so grateful to be living in this place. I love where I am at and am so excited to get back to my life living in my yurt on the hill on a goat farm. I feel so loved and supported and am proud to be a part of a community that rally’s together to help those in need.

This space…it’s home. Home sweet home.