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Trial by Fire
The Jumpstart of my Service Year
I started my service term with AmeriCorps in a flurry of activity that can only be described as chaotic. Not a month before my term was set to start, I woke at night to the biggest thunderstorm I had ever heard. I stood on my balcony at 3am, mesmerized by the beautiful lightning and breathing the fresh eucalyptus-scented air of Santa Cruz. All was well.
Two days later, most of the area was on fire. What I didn’t know while I watched the storm was that I was witnessing the shocks that would start the CZU Lightning Complex fires that would devastate the surrounding region. Hundreds of people lost homes, and thousands had to be evacuated as the acrid smoke filled the sky. In a year where we have already experienced such loss, it seemed like we were losing once again. I guess sometimes the most auspicious of beginnings are heralded by the tides of misfortune rising so high that there is nothing left to do but start over.
The thing about fire — however damaging it may be — is that it often means rebirth. From the ashes of a charred forest, an entire burgeoning ecosystem waits to begin life anew. It is precisely with that sentiment that I watched people rise up to support each other during one of the biggest natural disasters in decades.
