Sweet summertime

EDITION #03

Sweet summertime

Silver-blue leaves of late-season golden alyssum in soft evening light

Hi, it’s Meghan.

The sky is clear in Lytton, and we recently made it through another anniversary. This one seems to have given a great distance from the fire, even while it also feels like yesterday.

Time both stretches and stands still. I think it’s the same when, seventy years after they were first planted in the rock walls around my little house, the silver-blue leaves and translucent seed pods of alyssum catch the evening light.

Life in Lytton

A black, orange and white kitten stretched out on a brick patio

A small change with big meaning: we have a new patio at our house. The bricks are survivors from the Klowa courtyard; they’re marked and stained from the fire, and they’re beautiful.

Having them here, around our home, is like closure—like the old fire-torn life can become something new, a place for me and Helen to feel peaceful and safe.

There’s also a little kitten. Snuggy Cupcake, of course, who was an unhappy flea-ridden stray just a few days ago, is now joyfully sprinting through the house and yard with Helen at her heels.

Advocacy in Ottawa

Seven climate disaster survivors on Parliament Hill, Ottawa

Photo courtesy of Climate Action Network Canada

Last month, I met with a group of fellow climate disaster survivors in Ottawa. We shared our stories with politicians and policy makers and it was hard and exhausting and incredibly rewarding.

A climate advocacy group put together a powerful video with our stories (filmed on a rainy morning on Parliament Hill), and the Vancouver Sun published an op-ed I wrote about the impact of the fire (linked below).

I think that experiences like this one help me make sense of the fire. They help me see the positive change that can come from devastation, and the connection that comes from sharing.

A rusted, melted and burned bicycle lies on the ground

Vancouver Sun

Opinion / Op-Ed

My daughter Helen had just turned five when the fire hit Lytton. She was away from home for a few days, escaping the heat dome that turned fir needles red on the branch…

A little online shop

One of my favourite things about Klowa was the curation of it, the way that certain pieces fit together with unexpected perfection. The plant-dyed colour palette of a knitwear collection; the curves of a vase paired with a feminine wire figure on canvas; soft north light on pictograph paintings; nightfall in the courtyard.

I’m really happy to be curating again.

(Can I say how satisfying it is to stand on a chair with phone in hand, and see that dried plants from the garden and daylight on the kitchen table turn product photos into a whole mood?)

I have a new shop on my website with things I’ve been working on, and I’ll be adding new items, new creations, each month. It’s a small, intimate little shop, and I hope you’ll take a look.

Three amber essential oil bottles with Kraft labels grey background

Dried lavender and a fir bookmark on grey background

Burning Sage Poems from the Lytton fire on grey background

Enjoy 10% Off with code NEWSLETTER10

Visit the Shop

What I’m working on

If we’ve met in person, you know the absolute joy I feel when I tell you what I’m currently most excited about. I can’t stop my eyes from widening or my cheeks from smiling or the words from pouring out.

So let me tell you, with joy, about one of my current projects: home.

Helen and I live in a sweet little house from the 1950s, tucked into the hillside above Lytton Creek and thankfully saved by firefighters when the fire hit.

I’ve been putting love into the house in these last few months. There’s the new Klowa-brick patio, and flowers blooming in the yard, and a new front door to welcome visitors. There’s also a perfect tiny office in what used to be the pantry closet—fourteen square feet of quiet workspace, where I’m typing this now.

Helen often catches me staring with satisfaction at each little change, my heart filling with layers of thankfulness.

Maybe I can show you what I mean. Here’s the front door, before and after. It makes me happy.

What I’m reading

On the coffee table is Lytton: Climate Change, Colonialism and Life Before the Fire. It’s written by Kevin Loring, whom I’ve known and looked up to my whole life, and Peter Edwards, another former Lyttonite.

This book has me hooked in a way that I’ve never been with nonfiction. Yes, it’s about home, and that makes a difference—but Kevin and Peter are eloquent storytellers, and they’ve captured the feeling of this place.

For the Nlaka’pamux, the land isn’t an inanimate thing meant to be conquered. Animals and trees are fellow beings. Time isn’t linear, as in Western culture. History is everywhere, blending the present with the past. Even verb tenses in the Nlaka’pamux language make the past the present. Pronouns don’t distinguish gender, and the rain and mist are living things—the breath of ancestors. (16)

Highly recommended.

Lytton book by Edwards and Loring on a brick patio

Peter Edwards and Kevin Loring. Lytton: Climate Change, Colonialism and Life Before the Fire. New York: Random House of Canada, 2024.

Upcoming events

August 15, 2024 | Sierra Club BC | Online
”Lessons from Lytton” webinar (details and co-panelists TBA)

September 28, 2024 | Word Vancouver | Vancouver
Panel with authors Sarah Cox and Frances Peck

September 29, 2024 | Wine Country Writers’ Festival | Penticton
Coffee chat & book reading

Meghan Fandrich and daughter beside smoky confluence of two rivers at Lytton BC

It’s good to be home.

Finally, for the first time since the fire, I feel grounded. Grateful for this little house, for the mountains, for the sound of the wind blowing through the pines.

I hope you’re finding moments of peace. If you’re passing through Lytton, please stop by; we’ll have a cup of tea on the back patio together, while Helen and the kitten run by.

Meghan

PS. I’m thinking of everyone affected by the Shetland Creek Wildfire and other fires across the province, and sending love to you all.

meghanfandrich.com >

Listening to each other