Creative Nonfiction by Kandi Maxwell
I despise moving. It’s hard physical work. Pack and lift heavy boxes. Move household objects from downstairs to upstairs and out the front door. Load the stuff into the back of my Jeep. Drive thirty miles to our storage unit and unload the boxes. When I return home, I think about cleaning, but save it for the following day, and instead, take a much-needed nap. This wasn’t the original plan. Our final move was supposed to be in 2015 after my husband, Lloyd, and I had retired, sold our home on thirty acres in the high desert mountains in Modoc County, California. Moved from the land of sweet-smelling sage and juniper trees to the forested Sierra Foothills. The land of lakes and rivers in shimmering shades of blue. We moved to be near children and grandchildren. We bought a tiny cabin on half an acre lush with Ponderosa pines, madrone, and cedar. Yet, crushing claustrophobia pressed in on us at the tiny property. Our cabin was close to neighbors whose homes were visible through the trees and sat too close to a well-traveled road. At least it appeared that way after living fifteen years on a dead-end, dirt road with only a few sparsely scattered neighbors. Cattle had often traveled our dusty road in Modoc County—to see cars drive by in front of our new home was a bit of a shock. We needed seclusion and solitude so made plans to buy a larger piece of property as a retreat.
The planned refuge came together in 2019 after Lloyd found a remote ten acres with a well, one solar panel, an outdoor shower, and a useable off-grid trailer. I swept, scoured, and scrubbed. Lloyd installed new flooring, a wood stove and water heater. We bought a propane refrigerator. We took loads and loads of junk to the dump—old mattresses, rolls of rusty wire, rotting wood and broken furniture. The property was rustic at best, but quiet. No road near the trailer. Our long dirt driveway was gated and locked. We were several miles from pavement.
The plan to use the trailer as our private getaway, while keeping our on-grid cabin changed when a neighbor asked to buy our cabin. Another plan formed—live off-grid full time. That worked great for two years, but life wasn’t easy. We were three years into severe drought. Heat was suffocating without air conditioning. Then came the fires. First, there was the Willow Fire of 2020 that sparked near our trailer. Thousands of people were evacuated in communities near us, but we didn’t know that. Without electricity or a paved road, we were not given any warning. Thankfully, our neighbor up the hill had a fire scan at sent me a text at 1:00 a.m. Alarmed, I stepped outside and saw the glowing flames in the distance. My heart raced as I rushed back to the trailer and told Lloyd we needed to get out immediately.
Later, there was the Dixie Fire of 2021, an enormous wildfire that began in July and burned 963,309 acres before it was contained in October. For four months, smoke turned blue skies into oppressive gray that burned our lungs, stung our eyes. Lloyd has asthma and COPD. His incessant cough became a dry, hacking bark. When the fire drew close to our property, we were evacuated—twice. I remember the panic. My shallow breath; my tensed muscles. We were frazzled by hyper vigilance. Previously, in 2018, my children and grandchildren lost their homes in the Paradise Camp Fire. We had already been emotionally devastated by fire. Now, we were bone-weary and scared.
The third plan hatched—buy another home not far from the trailer, on the grid, near pavement, a fire hydrant, and a community water source. It took some time to find the right place, but eventually, we found a white, wooden farmhouse on five acres. It was higher up the mountain where snow had been heavy in the past, but the drought hadn’t brought snow to our new house in years. Not until the winters we lived there when snow piled six feet high. Massive cedars, weakened by drought and attacked by bark beetles, fell all over our property, smashing fences, our shed, the satellite dish. The power failed, and the outage lasted weeks. Roads closed. After two winters of heavy snow, Lloyd was exhausted. Shoveling snow and cutting and clearing downed trees is hard in an overworked body filled with degenerating discs and bones.
The fourth plan was Lloyd’s idea. I loved the snow, but Lloyd was cold and overwhelmed. He shoveled around his truck and down the driveway. As he tried to drive away, his truck slid in the snow and smashed into the garage. He didn’t stop— just kept on driving down the hill to town to see a realtor.
“We need to be realistic,” Lloyd said to me. “We’re aging. Maybe we should move closer to the big town.” I was reluctant. Established requirements: acreage, not too close to other homes, preferably on a small road, and not in town. We found the house on the edge of town with three acres on a quiet street. There were sugar pines and oaks. Green, grassy hills. Turkey and deer. But I couldn’t get used to the peripheral noise—car engines and loud, obnoxious motorcycles, sirens, and barking dogs. The house was built in 1957, newer than our previous homes, but I couldn’t accept the blue carpet, or the Airbnb feel of the home—the house came furnished with over-sized furniture: a sofa, chair, and ottoman. I felt detached. Lost. I had no emotional connection to the low, rolling hills or the house.
Lloyd was fine. He could turn off his hearing aids for quiet, and he enjoyed the comfort of spreading out on the big couch. He thrived in the summer’s heat. This was his geography—until winter when atmospheric river rains caused a state of emergency due to raging winds and hammering rain that caused three huge digger pines to fall on top of our waterline and lift it out of the earth. Trees had to be removed, the debris chipped and hauled off, the entire water line replaced. It took a full month to clear the trees, trench the earth, and install the line. Lloyd, at 74, hand-dug about 20 feet of trench line as the fifty-something-year-old plumber didn’t want to shovel through the narrow, tree-rooted spot.
Desperation filled us. Was there anyplace we could settle down?
The fifth plan was simple—sell the too-close-to-town house to live off-grid on the land we loved. We had been chased off the mountain by climate chaos, but experience had shown us there was no place to hide. Lloyd had recently finished an addition on our trailer. After a well inspection, we had a new well pump installed. A second generator for a window air conditioning unit. We plan to enclose the 10’ x 12’ screen room for more useable space. Add more solar panels for winter lights.
So, we’re moving again. We will put money into a place in the mountains we can’t insure, a place where red flag days are prevalent all summer. Where river rains flood dirt roads and heavy snow downs trees. We may be crazy, but here we are in our seventies, packing up to move from our illusional safe house to live quietly off-grid in the woods. After five moves in nine years, I’m exhausted and yearn to stay put until our bodies wither and fade. I fear fleeing from yet another home, but dreams and memories hold me up.
At least for awhile, we will live in our beloved Sierras. Sit outside and drink our morning coffee under the cedar trees’ fan-like sprays. Watch shadows dance on the trees. Because even in our elderly age, we refuse to put a limit on our plans.
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Kandi Maxwell (she/her) is a creative nonfiction writer who lives in Northern California. Her stories have been published in Hippocampus Magazine, Bluebird Word, The Raven’s Perch, Wordrunner eChapbooks, and elsewhere. Her memoir, Snow After Fire, was released in June 2023 by Legacy Book Press. Learn more about Kandi’s writing at kandimaxwell.com.