A small miracle and beginning againā¦
Finally it was our turn, the state funded bushfire clean up crew reached our place. Almost 6 months after the fire raged through our valley devastating habitat and wildlife. It also consumed our dwelling, stored building materials, and a shipping container full of everything that didnāt fit in the shack (including all your stored stuff that means something to you and your history but that isnāt needed on a daily basis). We had sifted through the house rubble finding a few items of sentiment and interest, but the container was almost impossible to enter. The smell was intense and overpowering, probably because of the plastics, said the clean up crew. Before the burnt out container was removed they flipped it and it was sitting like that, awaiting removal the following day when husband inspected the site. He spied boxes at the back of the container, they appeared intact some even had writing on them. He waded ankle deep in ash to retrieve 6 unburnt boxes, one labeled in my handwriting, mementos.
Unpacking these boxes was like collecting your stolen hand bag from the police station, and finding money still in your purse. I had accepted things as gone and yet here some things were, a few were blackened and all smelt as awful as the container they were plucked from, but they were back. A bunch of significant and random items. My wedding dress, miraculously unscathed in tissue paper inside a blackened gift box inside a blackened bag inside a blackened moving box. My tears flowed as I unwrapped items. Three of my journals including one that had been my first wedding anniversary gift. My hens night photo book from a faraway time in a faraway land. Gifts and letters from my family. Sushi plates I bought while living in NZ. My karate medals. All my school reports - proof to my children that as I still do, I talked a lot in class. A box of books. Crockery that didnāt fit in the shack. A slightly melted plastic container of photo negatives. Souvenirs from a trip to Japan, among them, silk and a paper fan, unbelievably intact inside exquisite Japanese packaging designed for aesthetic but solid enough to protect contents inside a box at the smouldering end of a shipping container on the south coast of NSW. My childhood money box, the plastic had melted but I smashed it open to find foreign coins and Aussie $1 and $2 notes in perfect condition. Why had I kept these things and why were they coming back to me? I remembered packing some of these items in the last few days before leaving Melbourne, I was running out of time to properly sort them and the bins were full. Iāll reassess these later, I thought. Then as we were moving onto the block I sorted through more boxes culling items but feeling unable to part with others. Standing in a garage in a Mollymook house I never thought I would live in, I gazed upon these relics of my past and thought, why bloody why? Most discoveries were magical but others I couldnāt have cared less for, so the emotions crashed over me like waves. Only a few found items belonged to my husband, so I felt sad for his lost history. Things arenāt always supposed to make sense or be understood. But it felt like a small miracle and as though my trajectory shifted a few degrees to the positive.
The container was removed and then it was all gone. The pile of twisted tin, precarious chimney flue, blackened rock wall, random house remnants and the foul smelling burnt shipping container - gone. When I first visited the cleared site the track marks were still on the ground where the excavator scraped (almost) clean away the detritus of our former lives. A few clues remained, a molten piece of aluminium window frame, crockery pieces, the logo sticker from the washing line, an unearthed and cracked grey-water pipe. ā9 years of work gone,ā sighed husband.
The vacant ground seemed at once smaller and bigger than when we resided there. Itās so much easier to manage, looking at absence rather than destruction. But it brought its own emotions. As I walked around the vacant space, I remembered the years spent on that land, standing in certain spots I recalled memories of ordinary and extraordinary occurrences. Sorting out recycling in the wood shed, where I filled the bucket for hand washing clothes, where the lace monitor got cornered inside the fence one day, the night I found Penny the diamond python enjoying the warmth of the generator box, watching microbats emerge from between the old weatherboards at dusk, bathing my toddlers in a bucket on the edge of the deck, when husband created a bike track around the shack and we did laps - then I stacked and my five year old son gave me first aid!
I miss living in that wonderful shack nestled in the bush and off-grid life. I have been trying so hard to cope in our new living space and with the worldās current challenges, that I had actually forgotten how much I miss it.
So itās good the mess has gone because now we can start to move forward with our plans to return. First step was to camp there. It was like going back to the start, when we used to visit from Melbourne and there was no water, toilet or power. The boys loved it. Both the adventure and being back. We sat at the fire pit, which was ironically untouched by bushfire, and toasted marshmallows like we had done many times before. This time the night bush was silent. Most animals are gone. We did see wombat poo so at least one critter survived or has moved here. The lyre bird is still the loudest and cleverest bird on the block. Weāre down to one, there used to be two. The yellow breasted robins are back, flitting from low branch to branch watching to see if we move a log and expose a tasty insect morsel. Despite the changed landscape, we felt relaxed and at home. We rebuilt old bike tracks and made new ones. The boys were happy and there were no requests for TV or iPad, just biking and sick tricks, each boy vying to achieve the biggest air.
So you will go back? People cautiously ask me. What about the danger I read in their silence when I answer. Weāre mitigating risks this time. We will have fewer trees around us, we wonāt be in exactly the same spot, we will have sprinklers, we will have window shutters and best of all, we have insurance. A shed first, then the access road and then one day on the far horizon, we will build a proper house.
