To view the complete interview with Michelle, please go to vimeo.com/243592339
I know nothing of of what it means to flee for your life. I know what it means to run – run away, run afar, run toward, but i know nothing about hearing the roar and smelling the suffocation of my literal life burning down around me and then taking off, running for my survival. These women do. And all their neighbors in the Journey’s End Mobile Home Park in Santa Rosa, CA.
A month ago, wildfires sprang up in the Sonoma County, Napa Valley, East Bay spontaneously and right in the midst of populated communities, more then anytime previous in this area. Southern California has been burning for years but the range has also escalated and become more severe down south and the wildfires have spread north, the whole state seems to be on fire now.
This is what climate change looks like.
Another thing I didn’t know anything about at the beginning of last week, was how I was going to connect with the women in this ravaged area. I am just beginning my journey with this project and i have these ideas, but reality is just throwing yourself into the deep end and seeing what happens. So I decided that I was going to just go see what i could find in Santa Rosa when I set off a few mornings ago. I had connected with a lovely old friend who was now living in the area and he had connected me with a friend who had a friend in a local women’s shelter and i was going to call her later that day. I also had stopped by the local Vet’s Building that had been a hub of shelter and outreach when the fires were raging and talked to the loveliest people there. The people working there had their stories of the anxiety and overwhelming emotion that they had experienced and still were in the aftermath of reconstruction. A woman at the Vet’s Building had given me a name at another shelter to touch base with, i was following my nose and seeing what would flower. I decided I needed to see up close the fire before I went to these shelters, I needed to have a real sense of what these women survived before I could ask them to share a piece of what happened with me.
So I went driving in a direction that had been mentioned that had fire damage. I was pulling off the highway and there I was taken by surprise at Journey’s End. A mobile home park that is completely and utterly gutted by fire, twisted and destroyed and all that is left are these blackened echoes of human life, our relationship to the word “home” made farce by pure destruction.
The emergency fence had an access point in it and i walked through, me and my camera. There was a gentlemen like a ghost sitting on the curb near the entrance, I walked over to him and asked me if he had a home here, he said yes and proceeded to tell me his story and weep and share his vulnerability with such dignity and truth, he is his own story in what the fires have illuminated. After that experience, i walked on, taking photos, framing the heartbreak, this story was why I was here. To learn and be a witness to this level of vulnerability. As I made my way to the back to the row of about 10 mobile homes that were still intact and relatively unscathed compared to the around 170 homes that were burnt to the ground. The stark contrast between the homes that were burnt and those that are not, was dreamlike strange.
And in all of this, I found Michelle and then, her friend Jan. There was a local news van and I saw a that some kind of interview was happening. I saw a woman, so far all I had seen was men and though they were beautiful and totally willing to share their stories with me, i was here to witness the women. I spoke at length with Michelle’s partner while she was busy and then she was shaking hands and walking away from that group – would she want to talk to someone else on the heels of her first interview, was I being to intrusive? Her partner assured me no, and he walked me over to Michelle, I introduced myself and told her what The Nature Of Refuge was about and that I’d be honored if she would tell me a piece of her story and answer my questions. She was completely gracious and open and ready to do the interview right on the spot, she didn’t miss a beat, this woman is on a mission to save her community and she will talk to anyone to help further that cause. Michelle had one of the few homes that the fire had spared and she was fully charged and activated in saving Journey’s End, being an advocate for all her neighbors , and be at the head of the fray in wrangling through the bureaucracy and shady dealings that surround the park’s reconstruction.
Michelle Trammell: strong in her faith, brave, committed, activated, overwhelmed, determined, transformed.
During the interview process with Michelle, her good friend and neighbor arrived and watched as I spoke to Michelle on camera. I found out that Jan Davis did lose her home in the fire. She lost everything. Jan told me she left her house running in her nightgown with one of her two cats and her purse under her arm and thats it. Everything else was left behind and is gone. Her beloved guinea pig, her plants, her sweet sanctuary, her life as she knew it; vanished. Jan had been then unofficial welcome committee to all the other Journey’s End residents, a person you come to when you need advice, need to get something done, when you need help you came to Jan. Now Jan needs help, needs the kind of help that is unimaginable, and thankfully she is receiving help and it keeps coming but she is shaken to the core, her sense of self rocked. Jan is strong and brave and she is living in the epicenter of her primal vulnerability and I see her and witness and honor her fear.
Jan carries three framed magazine images that represent the fire destruction in her life with her where she goes. She has a yellow plastic bag that she carries them in and they help her make some kind of sense in her life experience, they are her talismans and a through line of sorts. These three images help make her feel safe in a situation in which there is no safety.
Jan Davis: devastated, vulnerable, brave, strong, terrified, resilient, lost, determined.
This is the nature of refuge.
