After remodeling my wife’s childhood home in Orinda, moving there from a much loved home in Walnut Creek, and working to make our house and property safer in a wildfire, I started to wonder, What are our responsibilities as homeowners, neighbors, and toward future generations? I think the idea of “owning” a house and property doesn’t make a lot sense in the long run because owning anything is always temporary. We move from one place to another, and eventually have to let go of everything when we grow old and pass away. Maybe, instead, we could think of it as being stewards of the building and property for the time we live there?
Aside from protecting our lives and property as best we can while the effects of Global Climate Change become more evident each day, including the increased fire risks in California, why spend so much time and money on upkeep?
Here's a poem where I grapple with the problems. I hope it speaks to you.
Living With Fire
Pink and red Camellia blossoms fire
outside my window, and Oak trees.
The whine of leaf blowers across the street
argument of Steller's Jays
wind chimes made of pine needles
and the buzzing of the hummingbirds.
The coyotes howl at night
and the thought of a spark
from our neighbor’s Eucalyptus tree
haunts us, like the scenes in L.A.
rising fire, knifing through homes.
We live here on borrowed time.
Loose dirt and mulch prepared for a garden.
A new foundation. Piers going down ten feet.
Defensible space gives us time to run.
The maintenance never ends.
Gutter guards and metal mesh to keep out
the embers. We hope to save
the Bougainvillea from the insurance company
becaue it's too close to the house.
It's been clinging to the back porch
for fifty years.
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