Category Archives: Castle Willett

It might be a small case of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) previously unnoticed. Or at least previously untriggered.

An hour or so I started getting a whiff or two of smoke. Very faint. Enough so the first few I wasn’t even sure that I was really smelling it.

Then there was a bit more – but not much. Enough so that I thought it might be something minor like a light heating up with some dust on it. Sort of like that burnt smell you get when you turn on the forced air furnace for the first time in the fall and the dust in the burner goes up.

But it didn’t go away, and I got a couple more stronger whiffs. Now it’s time to get up from my desk and check it out.

Nothing in the hallway at all. Go out into the living room. Nothing really, maybe just the faintest trace.

Open the front door and step out – and it hits me like a hammer. It wasn’t my imagination.

The cause was obvious. We’re hitting an unusually cool stretch for Los Angeles in late May, highs barely reaching 70°F, and the lows down into the upper 40’s. It’s 56°F now. Someone in the neighborhood, possibly a couple someones, had their fireplaces going, or a backyard firepit for their holiday BBQ. The end result was that the air was heavy with the scent of wood smoke.

No biggie, right? That’s a homey, comfortable, happy memory smell of fall and winter in Vermont, Christmas mornings… Well, it used to be. Now?

Remember last November less than a half mile from here as we had our valuables packed in the cars ready for the “Go!” command to evacuate?

That would explain the way a whiff of wood smoke put my brain into high alert mode and being outside in the dark with the air filled with the scent doubled my heart rate in a matter of seconds.

Olfactory cues can trigger strong associations with specific memories. It might be a while before the smell of wood smoke again means a cozy evening in front of the fireplace instead of panic and evacuate.

In addition to yesterday’s adventures (from which I am sore AS HELL today) where I was able to turn what might have been a frustrating change in plans into a useful and productive time, today also saw a change some changed plans and minor accomplishments.

In the big scheme of things none of it’s curing cancer or solving that whole world peace thing, but it’s surprising to me how much of a difference it makes in my mood and outlook.

I’ve spoken in the past about how the disruptions to life following a major event go far beyond the event itself. I compare them to earthquake aftershocks. We survived the 1994 Northridge earthquake relatively unscathed, but the aftershock sequences for months and months afterward drove me crazy. Enduring the earthquake while it was happening was relatively easy (and you had no warning and no options) – enduring the aftershocks was (literally) like going thorough it again and again and again.

Similarly, after having our car broken into and my briefcase stolen, the initial damage was repaired and the initial losses tallied (credit cards cancelled, new checking account opened and checks ordered, and so on), but for months afterward I would go looking for something that I expected to be easy to locate, only to realize then that it had been in that stolen briefcase. It was like being robbed all over again. And again. And again.

This weekend made me realize how much of my current state is due to last year’s move. (Pretty much look at the entire month of May 2018 to see how frantic, panicked, and exhausting it was.) Too much of that entire experience was dealt with on an emergency basis, in terms of doing just enough to get by and damn the cost and damn everything else. Then when we were out of the old house and into the new, the “emergency priorities” continued as we tried to unpack, reorganize, and find the dishes and clothes and all of the things we needed to function on a daily basis.

With my work situation and priorities being what they were all of last year (and continuing on into this year) as well as our travels as well as my work load and crises at my volunteer CAF gig as well as the family health issues, there are dozens of major “loose ends” that are just flapping in the breeze.

For example, I have a couple dozen sweatshirts. When we travel I tend to pick them up as functional souvenirs. All this last fall and winter since we moved they’ve been “somewhere.” I’ve gone looking through the piles of stuff in storage and in the garage – no joy. I think I have one in the house, one in the van, and one at the hangar. The other fifteen or twenty or more? Might have well be at the bottom of that black hole they took a picture of last week. (BTW, wasn’t that just bitchin‘?!!)

Yesterday I found them in storage. I also found my collection of Hawaiian shirts, which is good because it’s heating up.

Another example – I write checks about once a month, so it’s just earlier this week (for our income taxes) that I used up the last two checks in my checkbook. I went looking for the next book of checks a couple days ago. And I couldn’t find it to save my life. I know EXACTLY where it was in my desk in the old house, but everything got pulled out of the desk for the move and while I’ve found most things, the checks weren’t on the list. I’ve been tearing through boxes for days.

I finally gave in to Murphy’s Law tonight and ordered the next set of checks, which will be here in about ten days. Of course, within fifteen minutes of that, my subconscious (no doubt laughing its ass off) coughed up the location of the old checks.

Aftershock.

Finally, we were just starting to get caught up on “Game of Thrones” last year when the move and its attendant priority shifts hit us. With the final season starting tonight, we wanted to get back into the effort of getting caught up – but didn’t have a clue where we had left off. This was more a case of detective work, going through the discs and some of the episode summaries online to narrow down what we remember seeing and what sounded alien. Once we figured it out and confirmed it, then it was time to kick back and binge. (FWIW, we’re in the fifth season, watched episodes 1-7 today. Cersi just got thrown in a cell by the Sparrows, and I’ve decided I probably hate Rams1y Bolton more than I hated Joffrey Baratheon, and that’s saying something.)

Aftershock.

So, if we force our way through these roadblocks, recognize the broken pieces of our daily routines and fix them, get back to “normal,” will the aftershocks stop?

Maybe.

Or that’s when we’ll have to move again and the whole cycle will start over again.

Just like with earthquakes.