Greenville Rising: Dec 31
By Meg Upon
As I write this we wake up to hearing more about fellow citizens outside Boulder, Colorado losing over 600 homes to fires where winds blew fiercely at 110 miles an hour. A bleak midwinter for them, and a reminder to us of the precarious nature of it all. But we’ve made it this far, thus far. Most of us are still alive and creating and grafting new lives from our pasts. Everything looks different than last year when we happily said goodbye to 2020 thinking what can be worse than that?
Now we know.
So here’s a raised glass to resilience and fortitude and living in this new terrain, this new world, with the same spirit of wonder and courage to forge new destinies for our families that perhaps our ancestors had.
This month has been marked by deaths of icons of American letters and literature who shaped me. I am of the age where my mentors are passing. Thinking of one of them now as the year also passes. I am reminded of Joan Didion’s power to describe her California. In her book about growing up in the Sacramento Valley, Where I Was From, she wrote:
“I closed the box and put it in a closet. There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.”
For me, that is essential element to keep living: closing the box of what was, putting it in the closet of memory literal and metaphorical and closing the door. There are other doors to open now.
May the new year bring us the fortitude and resilience we so need for the next phases of our rebuilding and recollecting of our lives. May we find joy and peace in all the tiny cracks and crevices of what is left to us. May we release all our bitterness and carry on.
Happy New Year.
A few details of events to consider are as follows:
Free Propane and Firewood Pick-Up
McNicholas & McNicholas LLP and The Becker Law Group clients Will host a Propane and Firewood Pick-Up Event and Gas Event this week in lieu of a town hall meeting.
“Please feel free to bring other family, friends, and neighbors who have been affected by the Dixie Fire,” their flyer reads.
The free propane and firewood pick-up is Sunday, January 2, from 10 a.m. to noon at Evergreen Market in Greenville. The free gas pick up is Sunday, January 2, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at FuelGood Gas in Westwood.
