Nine years ago the landscape here was charred black in the aftermath of the July fire. We were settling in for what turned out to be five and a half years of life based in our big drafty workshop, and we were working to turn it into our temporary home. We needed a place to winter, a place to spend some months musing about whether to stay or go.

On the first of October, 2014, still way off kilter from it all and not sure what to say, I posted these lines:

Reddest red / Blood of moose, quarters hung.

Blackest black / Fire-killed birch, split and stacked.

Whitest white / Any day now, ready or not.

Today I paced the high catwalk of our new log house – Hoarfrost Cabin Version 2.0 as one friend calls it – and looked away to the north and west and east, and what I saw is a landscape utterly different from the taiga-edge picture-postcard before the fire. (Can I even remember that view now? I wonder.) The rock of the big bluff to the north is baked and pale, its mauve covering of lichen and rock-tripe still many years from re-appearing. Looking closely, though, down lower in more sheltered nooks, I spied a few spruce seedlings here and there, some of them nearly eighteen inches tall. Tufts of grass, dried-out fireflower gone to seed, and clumped young birches are interspersed amidst endless acres of jumbled burnt deadfall.

To the south the big lake, with cold whitecaps dancing out there to remind me: there are some things fire doesn’t touch.

The summers here have become colorful again, probably even more colorful than they were before the burn. There is every shade of green, there are tans and reds, and miles of the stunning purple blossoms I am making a humble quest to re-name “fireflower.” (How much nicer than “fireweed” is that? C’mon.)

Autumns here now are not black, as that autumn was nine years ago, but vivid with yellow and gold from new birch saplings. Winter, however — that dominant half of the year now bearing down on us, the fall equinox behind us — will still be a monochrome. No green spruce will be in sight above the snowpack for at least a few more years. Those seedlings have a ways to go.

So be it. We can bear another round of monochrome. We had a choice, and we stayed. Some days we wonder why, and some days we even act as if we know.

After a season of fire, and losses to fire, there are always shrill voices chirping platitudes. Pithy phrases about re-growth, cleansing, and the marvelous cycles of nature. Mostly they come from people with no ashes or burned wreckage in view out their picture windows.

All I can say to those who have lost family homes, beloved trails, and back-country retreats to wildfire this time around is yes, there are platitudes, and yes, there will be resurrection, and yes, there is wisdom and some comfort to be had… but this is the start of a long haul. This is going to take time.

My own post-fire platitudes, from here, nine years on, include these:

Day by day, mark the tiny signs of new life, as best you can. Write these down.

Try to think of some onerous chore that the fire spared you from. And when you think of one, smile!

Consider moving on, and consider staying put.

And by all means take your sweet time as you make that decision.