From Susan Bono on 11/8/17
In the early morning hours of October 9, 2017, the conflagration
known as the Tubbs Fire tore through the Fountaingrove area of Santa Rosa. The
residents of Varenna had to flee for their lives, and at the time of this
writing, they remain scattered, sheltering with family and
friends until their home is safe to return to. The members of the Varenna
Writers Club have been separated, but are united in love, which no fire could
destroy. As we count the days until our group can meet again, here are two of
their stories:
From Annie Brayer on 10/28/17:
With all the horrendous stories floating around, I
thought you might enjoy our account. Hope you are safe. We are in Sea Ranch
where we lived for fifteen years before coming to Varenna. It’s the very best place
for us. Old friends, loving and supportive, who could ask for anything better?
Evacuation at 3 A.M.
Bailey’s Story
I am a Havanese. On the night of the fire, my sister and I
were being cared for by Mike and Annie. They also have a Havanese, so we are
all great friends.
At “0-dark-thirty,” a fireman in a gas mask came to the
door. What a scary thing he was! He scared me so much, I barked and barked. No
one seemed to care, so I ran outside to take care of big business. It didn’t
bother me that the fence was burning, the wind was howling, or that embers were
up on the walkway into the house. Annie went ballistic! She actually screamed
at me.
We all left with the scary fireman that I kept growling
at. We went up to the main building where we waited and waited in the dark smoky
building while several of those guys carried people down the stairs. Through
the smoke, I could see them every now and then. So naturally, I barked and
barked. Annie wasn’t at all pleased with me. When finally the bus came, I
decided I couldn’t wait any longer and took care of big business right as we
were ready to board the bus.
One good thing happened! Because we were three dogs, we
attracted a lot of attention. When we got to the sister community in Concord, a
couple of gals who really liked dogs came to visit. They asked Mike and Annie
if they needed anything. Annie said our phones were dead. They ran home and
brought them chargers to keep for their phones. Annie gave me a love, and told
me I saved the day!
My Mom drove up to Concord from Carmel to pick us up.
When I saw her, I said, “Mom, you won’t believe the weekend we spent with Mike
and Annie!”
--Annie Brayer
_________________________________________________________
From Sandra Rennie on 11/6/17:
Here is the one piece that I
have written so far, not to be included in anything underway, but just to share
a piece of my experience with you.
Sonoma Street
San Francisco’s narrow Sonoma Street
is eighteen feet wide, clapboard house to clapboard house. Four feet on either side is sidewalk, leaving
just enough room for a car to traverse this two-block, one-way street. I like
Sonoma and its brethren streets known as half streets. They are largely
unnoticed except by locals who understand, as I do, that they are quiet and
private, a rare privilege for a city dweller.
This street sits on the side of
Telegraph Hill, an early occupied part of the City close to the thriving waterfront
of the Gold Rush days. On many of the wooden houses on Sonoma Street, the paint
covers the wood in lumpy strokes, attempting to look new and fresh, but unable
to conceal the many layers that have partly peeled away over the years. The
houses parade down the street cheek by jowl on either side with not an inch
between them. Owners express their
individuality with the separate color combinations they choose for their
buildings.
From the windows of 5254 that face
the street, the immediate view is of three houses, cheerfully painted. The left
one is mauve with deep purple trim, the middle one is pale green with russet
trim, and the right is pale gold with ochre trim. 5254 is robin’s egg blue with
white trim. This mélange of color on the street is not discordant; it somehow
it is as it should be.
5254, like others on Sonoma Street,
is narrow, only sixteen feet wide. The first story holds the garage and a
decoratively designed locked metal gate behind which very steep stairs rise on
a twisting path of uneven steps to two locked entry doors. One door opens to
the second floor apartment; the other to another set of fifteen steep inside stairs
to the third floor apartment where Nick and I staying.
Each of the apartments of 5254 has one
bedroom. There is a tiny bath with shower and a toilet set at an angle partly
under the pedestal sink in order to provide a realistic opportunity to actually
sit down. The kitchen has been constructed on a former back porch and newly
modernized with a bamboo floor and modern appliances. A living room spans the
sixteen foot width of the building at the front and has three windows. An
unspoken rule of neighborliness in close buildings like Sonoma Street is to
avoid looking in the windows across the way. The living room has a wood burning
fireplace in a corner, clearly the original, and only heat source for most of
the life of the building. Now, air quality rules forbid its use and heat is
provided via electric baseboard strips in the living and bed rooms.
These houses with no front gardens
and no side yards have a secret life in the rear. San Francisco has an
abundance of private, and even sunny, spaces between the backs of houses facing
one street and those facing the next street over. I had a friend who owned
adjacent four-story apartment buildings on Nob Hill. He combined the rear space
of the two buildings to create a lovely patio and enough landscaping to make a
small park. It included the tallest avocado tree I have ever seen that yielded
a bag full of take home every time I visited.
The rear space behind Sonoma is not
so large or luxurious as the Nob Hill space but it is highly interesting and
very useful. Out each back door is a very small covered landing. The landings
of several buildings and their apartments are interconnected by wooden stairs. Out
our apartment at 5254 the six steps connect to a landing of an apartment facing
the next street. Traversing this landing, skirting an operational washer and
dryer to dual set of stairs, one going up and the other down, is like being at
the Fun House of a Carnival or The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose where
options for direction keep multiplying. Heading instinctively for the sun, one
eventually arrives at the roof of 5254, where there is a table, chairs, and a
rewarding view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The neighbors don’t violate the
privacy or the ownership of whatever may be on a landing and no one tries a
door not his own. There is a comfort, trust, and unspoken sense of community
embedded in this code.
It takes getting used to, climbing
all these steps and maneuvering sideways to use the bathroom. The appliances in
the kitchen are from Ikea and that takes getting used to also. What is the
correct setting centigrade to bake a potato? Fortunately, my iPhone knows how
to answer that question so the potato is baked in due time.
Why am I here? It is because I am a
refugee from the Great Firestorm of 2017. I am glad for simple things now—a
roof over my head, a way to frequently wash my only two changes of clothes, a
refrigerator to hold some groceries, and yes, that tiny bathroom, too. And I
have gained an understanding and appreciation of how the neighbors of 5254 live
and make do, day after day, and year after year.
--Sandra Rennie
