The Badness.
Sorry for posting without a cut-tag. I'll rein my angst in now.
There are probably a million words to describe how I'm feeling, and what Shadow & I just went through, but I can hardly think of any right now. Nothing metaphorical, nothing lyrical, or poetic, (however angst-ridden,) so I'm just going to be literal, and as plainspoken as I know how to be.
On the way back from Clinton War, just outside Chilliwack, B.C., we hit a bit of traffic. Not worried though, as the jeep had been well behaved the whole trip, and hadn't shown signs of overheating for months. Just as traffic started to move, the oil pressure dropped to zero, and the engine chugged a little as I gave it gas. I commented that something was wrong. Then there was a bit of smoke, and Shadow mentioned that. I said it was more than a bit, as grey-white smoke started pouring through the steering column into the car. pouring. It smelled like burning wires. I said I thought something was on fire, and I headed for the shoulder. Shadow said yes, that the hood of the car was on fire, as huge round blisters began forming on the hood of the car. I stopped in a hurry, shut everything down, and we basicly ran for the median. Shadow realized he'd left Eric's cel phone on the dash, and ran back for it, grabbing the camera, which was beside it as well. He handed it to me, and I called 911, and we sat fifty yards away, watching the jeep, and everything in it, be engulfed in smoke and flames unil the fire truck finally came, and took way too long to manage to extinguish it. While it was burning, I called our friend Harvey, who gave me some numbers in BC we could call, and contact info for some folks that I had lost because I left my notebook in the jeep. So I called the head of the household we'd camped with over the weekend, who lived in Vancouver, and they didn't even hesitate to tell us they would be there the second they got their truck unloaded, so they could help us haul what was left off of the road, and help us to get home. Neither of us was in any state of mind to take any pictures at that point. We lost almost everything. The fire guys tried to pull out everything they thought was worth salvaging, because A: they didn't want us breathing all the toxins and or cutting ourselves on any of the lots of broken glass, and B: because I was dressed in what to them probably seemed like "nice clothes". Actually, I was in slightly dirty end-of-event packing out gear- white peasant blouse, black peasant skirt, all dusty and sweaty, home made, and not terribly valuable. I pushed passed them, and rummaged in the soggy, charred mess, and managed to salvage, or at least locate, quite a few small, but meaningful items that they had missed, while of course, coming away from the wreck looking like a coal-miner. (Or the fire-victim I was, I guess.) Somewhere in all of that, my sandals dissolved for no aparent reason, leaving me extra-patheticly barefooted and filthy and wet on the B.C. highway. We thanked the fire guys and gave them a report, then tried to pick through things as best we could while they hooked the jeep up to a tow and hauled 'er away. We must have looked like those people in disaster-zones they always show on the news, crying and picking up little things and brushing them off hoping any little item could be saved.
Then a BC policeman showed up and took our statements, and gave us a card with a case-number, so that we would be able to tell the border guards why our identification was incomplete. (Irony there, if you've been reading my LJ the past week...)
Several SCA people saw our plight and stopped to offer various forms of assistance, ranging from bringing us water and cigarettes to offering to put us up and help us get back on our feet. We accepted some, declined others, (better we thought to wait a little longer and be with folks we knew well than with family that we didn't know at all...)
Elrik showed up with Damien, and a knight that neither of us recognized pulled over and lent a hand, and we loaded the smokey dirty mess of our gear into Elrik's truck. He took us to their house in Surrey, let us shower, fed us, and helped us both get our heads screwwed back on straight. On the drive, I called Steve, who immediately vollunteered to drive to Canada the minute he could get free with the van, to bring us home.
While we waited, Elrik, Jen, (his wife,) Damien, (Elrik's dad,) and Demali, (Elrik's mom,) fed us, coffee'd us, and generally gave us the kind of emotional hand-holding you'd expect from the closest of kin. They let us rant, let us cry, distracted us when they thought they could and that it might help, got us laughing, and in general were an amazing, titanium support-base.
Later, Jen took me inside to show me some rams' horns that she and Elrik had been working on, and then whispered with a smile that she had something for us, but that there were conditions: First, we couldn't open the gifts until we got home, and second, we were not allowed to return them, or we'd insult their whole household. She handed me two heavy linen pouches, and told me that it wasn't much, but that they wanted us to have them, to help as much as they could.
Eventually, Steve came, and the guys loaded our stuff into his van, and many hugs and goodbyes were said, a little tearfully, (Jen forced a blanket on me, even though Steve's heater worked fine,) and we headed home. The border crossing was as uneventful as I have ever experienced- the guard was courteous, and didn't even suggest searching us, clear, I suppose, (as he sniffed the smoke on Shadow's documents,) that we had been through enough.
Near home, I learned from Shadow that Janet was pissed at us for not telling her everything, and I got kind of upset, as she, I, and Shadow all know perfectly well that she's prone to panic, and that her panic wouldn't have helped any of us in any way at that point. (I've told him that he needs to keep her away from me for a while, and he's agreed to do so.)
The gift from Jen, Elrik, & their household? As near as I can tell, they emptied the whole household's coffers to us. They gave us what must have been every cent that the household had collected in dues for armoring, camp food & supplies... Enough to possibly repair my guitar, (if I buy the parts and do the work myself,) replace at least one of my drums, and get us a start on a running vehicle, too. More tears. We are in the process of considering just how we can repay them, not the cash, (they'd never let us do that,) but the kindness.
I am extremely torn right now between grief at the loss of my lifelong friends and companions, (my instruments,) and absolute heart-rending joy at my faith in The Dream being renewed.