"Firewoman," a Soul Collage card in the Committee Suit. "I am the one who puts out fires even when I'm not on duty."
Yesterday was the annual Fire Department Open House for Families in Redondo Beach. One of the stations is only a half block away so the fire department and its rotating crews are ever-present, a integral part of the neighborhood. In 1989 I passed out early in the morning and when I picked myself up from the floor, I yelled for my youngest son, who was staying here for a while at that time. He called 911 and I swear, within moments, the paramedics were here. I got the ambulance ride to the local hospital, but after tests, it was deemed my blood pressure was too low and I was having a panic attack. I brought homemade chocolate chip cookies to the firehouse. Another time my young cat, who became mine by default when she walked in an open door on a summer night while I was doing a journal group, got caught on the roof. The firemen no longer climb trees or houses for cats--but one of the guys did climb the ladder three stories and got her down. More chocolate chip cookies.
I have great respect for our police and fire people, and when I saw these images of "Firewoman," I cut and collaged her on a backdrop of what seemed to me to be a mechanized image of a Greek God. I don't know what this card means, but I know what it evokes in me. A sense of overwhelming gratitude that a woman can put out fires and help to save lives, just like men can. As wives, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, we are sacred like a tribal firetender in the Native American tradition. My own lesson to learn, however, is that I often screech to the fire to control it when the alarm didn't even go off.
