Heart in the Wild A Journey of Self-Discovery With Animals of the Wilderness

Firewalk As we wake or sleep we grow strong or we grow weak. At last, some crisis shows us what we have become. Bishop Westcott The raven circled the column of smoke, which went straight up, blossoming like a fat, black balloon in that windless January afternoon. I thought the bird was soaring over someone's trash pile. Somebody's really got a heap going, I told myself. And right above our house. Burn piles are commonplace in the rural Wyoming valley where I live. The dark, billowing clouds that always attend them celebrate the site of someone's old haystack, garden clippings, or collapsed outbuilding. And yet something about this burn pile struck me as different. Something about the location. Where is it coming from? It must be the neighbors just up the road. No, that's not quite right. It was four days after the turn of the millennium, and I was returning home all warm and cozy after tea with a friend. The sun was dropping off the horizon, and the late afternoon shadows were dark charcoal. Aspens rested in the foothills, standing bare and serene, with trunks the color of campfire ashes. For me winter in Wyoming is a magic time. There is the cold, yes, but the mountains are so white that they shine even on days when the sun does not. And against that white, the blue of the sky is the color of oceans. That particular day in early January, the winter landscape had me so captivated that I hadn't noticed the black smoke balloon rising under the crest of our hill until I was approaching the final turn up the road to our house. For several moments I watched the raven playing tag with the smoke, wondering where the gray cloud originated. I felt irritated, imagining that it would waft its way up to our house, sending me into coughing fits when I went up to the barn to feed my horse and donkeys. The raven abruptly wheeled and spun away to the east. Instantly my body clamped down upon itself. And with a furious and icy rush of dread, I knew. But for a few moments longerfor as long as my mind would allow me to believe that my life had not changed foreverI chose not to know. I do not remember driving the car. I do not remember putting my foot on the brake to slow for the coming turn. I do not remember anything until I spun my wheel to make the turn and saw my corner neighbor, Archie, old and bent like a stick of driftwood, come hurrying to my car, shaking his head from side to side. I looked at Archie's face and then past his face to the columns of red flame moving like a breaking wave across the roof of my house. The raven was a tiny speck on the horizon. Opening the car window, I tasted the bitter chalkiness of smoke against the back of my mouth. Archie leaned in, his face close to mine, his head still shaking from side to side. Now his voice shook, too, and he said, "My God, Susie, I'm sorry. It looks like she's all gone . . . all gone . . ." In the nightmare of a living dream, I closed the window to block out the smell of smoke and opened my eyes wide, wide, letting the sight take hold, letting my throat clench. My home all in flames. Crowds lining the road. Cars milling everywhere. With my windows closed, it seemed as though all the chaos that I saw was unfolding in utter and eerie silence. The only sound that reached me was a curious muffled thudding, which I finally identified as the sound of my heart pounding like a fist against the walls of my chest. In those first moments of terrible realization, I struggled to pull air into my compressed lungs in deep, sucking gulps. I could not get enough. My head felt as light and unsubstantial as soapsuds. In my head was a cry, running over and over like a circular tape: This is NOT happening. This is a dream. This is NOT real. Wake up . . . wake up . . . wake up . . . You might think I would haveMcElroy, Susan Chernak is the author of 'Heart in the Wild A Journey of Self-Discovery With Animals of the Wilderness' with ISBN 9780345438577 and ISBN 0345438574.