Driving out of the ER, my son and I saw the hillside ablaze. The broken collar bone was momentarily forgotten as we marveled at the flames dancing above the trees. Home. We needed to get home.

My husband and I walked through our house, talking about what to take if we were called to evacuate from the approaching fire. I put a few things in an empty basket: the journals I keep for the kids, some canisters of ink, boxes of unused checks. We then turned on the news and I tried to eat the dinner that had been cooked while we were busy in the X-ray room. What an unusual way to spend a Thursday evening.

I walked around the house again after swallowing a few last bites of pre-Advent chicken, peeking into closets, looking at the hundreds of books that lined our shelves. Funny. I wanted to just leave it all, and go; I tried to see what in all that stuff was actually important, but didn't see much.

But then I came to my senses! Yes, it would be sad not to have photos of the kids, but who wants to recreate an entire family's financial history? Who wants to spend endless hours on the phone with Verizon or Fidelity trying to explain that the account numbers were now lost and becoming compost? I quickly jotted down a list of important files and documents that needed to find their way to our trunks if we were to leave our little Santa Barbara abode.

We never did have to leave. Flying embers never neared our two enormous trees. But we learned the following day that many friends had lost their homes that Thursday night, that they didn't have a free moment to pack, how they had to leave beloved things behind, handmade quilts and furniture, baby pictures, old family mementos passed down. It made me feel spoiled at having so much--at not having to make those endless phone calls or discover that I really will miss my childhood teddy bear.

Here is the list my husband and I ended up making just in case. An odd mix of things, but isn't that how our lives go?

• Camera, photos in office, photos in closet, laptops and chargers, icons on mantle and in dining room, purse, phones and chargers, jewelry box, mink coat (was my grandmas!), wool cape, yarn, hooks and needles, lock box, top box of files, binders in office, cooler, suitcases, medications, baby journals, bill box.

Meanwhile there are folks who need to talk, who need meals, who need support, and our own son with a broken collar bone. I hope to be there for them. My daughter and I are heading to the fire station with jars of homemade jam as soon as the roads reopen... those firefighters deserve so much more than jam for saving us from having to pack that trunk full of binders and files. For saving so many more homes than just our own.

My daughter, whom I've kept from gymnastics all these years, is now spending more and more time in gym class. I thought about putting her in gymnastics when she was little, to keep her from bouncing to bits all our household furniture, but every gym was the same: focused on turning little girls into Olympians. I was on that track myself and have many scars and creaky joints as proof. I wanted a gym for my daughter that allowed girls and boys to stretch, swing, flip and vault, simply because it's SO FUN!

I found a gym with a fun-for-kids philosophy just a couple months ago. It may be the only one in all 50 states. My daughter's having a blast.

Since mid-August-after watching all those little Olympian girls on TV in Beijing-- I've been getting in shape, hoping to relive the past a bit. I've been hanging out at the local athletic club three days a week, doing low-intensity work outs and stretching, all with one major goal in mind-to be in shape enough to do a side aerial again. I felt there were two important things to work on in order to ask my body to rewind the clock by more than two decades-flexibility, and strength in my left thigh. I found out today that three is a better number than two...

But I did the aerial. In fact, I did two!

Last Thursday, we received a flyer saying that the first Saturday of every month is Open Gym. Just ten dollars for three hours-no coaching, no structure-and open to kids and adults alike. Adults! Wow, I haven't been invited to chalk up my hands for 27 years. My chance had come to see if my regimen had paid off.

Well, did I say above that I did the aerial? That I did two side aerials, no hands, not even a wisp of a touch? Amen for muscle memory. But I certainly paid for it--I pulled my left groin muscle--sort of forgot him in the training. That first night I applied ice on and off for many hours. Yeah, it hurt.

But a few days later-it's not so bad. I'll need another week or two to recover before trying it again...

So, was I stupid to try it? Maybe to try so soon?
Am I simply going through a mid-life crisis?
Are you going through a mid-life crisis?

All I can say is--it sure felt great to fly again!

Maybe next month at Open Gym I'll tumble a piked double back flip. I used to love doing those...

I spent a good portion of a recent Saturday morning researching publishing houses for a picture book I'd like to see in print. It's a concept that came to me about seven years ago when my daughter had one of those profound—only kids could say that—moments. I immediately wrote down her thought and got to work.

So many years later this book still sits in various layers on my desk: critique groups have looked at; I have labored over the words and constantly revised it; and my agent even read through it, then turned it down saying, "there's just not enough punch—and it rhymes—it won't sell..."

I come from Basque heritage—do you know who the Basques are? They're a sort of wild, renegade people who live between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains. They've been known for many things like handball and dancing on top of wine glasses and playing tug of war and singing long ballads, but I think they're better known for smuggling and blowing things up. (I do not condone blowing things up, just so you know! More about that next.) From the Basques I think I get a certain bulldog quality. I am stubborn and tenacious, and don't give up easily on stories that I've labored over, and I like to sing long ballads and watch people dance on top of wine glasses, too...

I also am Danish and Irish and Scottish and English and a tiny bit German. I think all these other blood mixes formed in me a sort of peace treaty—they had to for my survival!—and that explains the part of me that loves harmony. As a sister I played mediator between the various family escapades that arose, as a friend I quelled arguments between classmates that had to do with whether the ball in foursquare actually hit the line, and in my stories I have a particular aversion to poisoning, threatening, or lopping off the heads of any of my beloved characters.

Okay, so maybe that begins to explain why yesterday, as I was reading through submission guidelines, and perusing the blogs of young editorial assistants at big houses, that I returned to my little story and suddenly realized, "Yikes! That story that I've now been working on for over seven years (!!!) is pure, sugar-coated, honey-flooded sap!"

What to do? What to do? The Basque in me can not let go, and the Mutt in me seeks a happy solution.

You know, it's weird. When I put on my editor's hat, I am a good Sap Spotter. One whiff of it sends me straight into rejection letter mode. (And as I'm sure you can guess, you will never get a nicer rejection letter than from me :) ) But with my own stuff, I goo and ooze, and just can't migrate to the conflict side of things! Until I learn this lesson, I'm afraid, I will forever be revising some of these adventure tales that I've dreamed up. All those words, all that time... Help me, I'm drowning in my own sweetness!

At a conference once, I climbed a long set of stairs to a podium, perched in front of a large audience, where I read the first chapter of a story for a critique. I stood poised, and read well, despite the nervous twitter of the paper in my hands. I loved this novel and thought I had got the book off to a snappy start. "Well," began the prof who was critiquing. "Do you drink much caffeine?" he asked bluntly.
"No sir, I don't."
"The words are lovely, the phrases flow from one thought to the next with ease and grace and elegance, but you're too nice. You had me in a trance. You suffer from niceness and I recommend you get a good strong cup of something before you sit down at your computer to compose."
"Umm, okay," I muttered. "Thanks."

So there you have it. A recommendation of Performance Enhancing Drugs. If I want to succeed in this business, and do more than write lovely rejection letters, I better get some caffeine and fast.

Any thoughts on a cure? I really don't do coffee—it gets me all fluttery. Any news on inventions of Sapometers? Any of you ever written a sappy story?

Okay, enough of this blabbering. I have a story to rewrite. Seven years is nothing to a Basque; I'm gonna hole up in a mountain town and herd my words until they're zippin' and fightin' their way off the page!

Seeing chalk clapped out of grips, feeling the sweat on my palms while a gymnast flips above the beam, hearing that horrible floor music again... nostalgia has hit me flat on, that every fourth year disease that taunts me to get off my bum and attempt flips and aerials, splits and somersaults despite my non-Olympic age.

I'm 43, I really shouldn't be doing aerials; I could break something, pull something, land on my head. Yet there I was last Tuesday, on an empty dance floor at the gym, practicing aerials.

There's some sort of gravitational pull, like those tides that bring in the grunion on full moon nights, that sweeps me back to the days of Olympic dreams—the days of dreams that were never realized. Strange to think that I never competed in the Olympics. Strange to think that I really didn't even get all that close, what with my torn tendons and ten casts and a penchant for falling off the beam more often than not. When I was a competitor the Olympics never really felt that far off, yet anything short of being there is as far away as the moon.

But I suppose it's better to dream than not to. So many of mine have become reality, and I'm thankful for those casts being in the past and having moved on to writing—a non-injury occupation. But I still think it would be fun to do an aerial again.

I remember how I learned the first time. We had just moved to the house on San Vicente Blvd and it had a long runway of a family room. I'd start at the sliding glass doors and speed across the room, then fling a cartwheel into the air, my arms tucked tightly to my chest and simply hope for the best. I remember my knees scrubbed red from the carpet because I was too stubborn to put a hand down. I had just started taking gymnastics at the time, so didn't really know the word "technique": my technique was speed, hope and a disdain for injury. That's the kind of gymnast I was—crazy. But eventually, that carpeted runway was my aerial heaven. I'm sure I showed that trick to all the neighbors and more.

I must still be. Crazy. Since I really want to re-live this trick—even if it's a measly one that you learn in gymnastics 101. Handstands get so boring. So I'll keep you posted and let you know my aerial progress. Here's where I'm at today.

• Can still do a nice cartwheel, and that's important; it's the foundation of a side aerial. (A side aerial is a cartwheel without hands...)
• Need a bit more middle-split flexibility, so will work on that...
• Fairly weak left thigh muscle, so will be doing some major legwork for propulsion—and if I'm smart, I won't only work on my left thigh...
• Am really only about half way there. Sort of pathetic. But I am 43. Willing to keep dreaming. By the way, did you see the 33 year-old gymnast who is still vaulting with the best of them? Ah, but that's a whole different post altogether!