Rather than staying to rebuild his life after the November 2007 Corral Canyon fire, one resident decides to hit the road, and live life one day at a time.
By Homaira Shifa / Special to The Malibu Times
What do you do when everything you own is taken away from you in three minutes? Where and how do you start rebuilding your life?
Those are the questions that faced local resident Jeffrey Donovan, along with dozens of other Malibu residents, when their homes were lost in an unexpected wildfire in November 2007, caused by five young men who started an illegal bonfire in a cave on state parkland.
Donovan was renting a guesthouse owned by friend David Swain at the time and was out of town when he received the dreaded phone call.
“I was in total shock,” Donovan said. “I was driving home and it took me an hour just to get my car pointed in the right direction. It’s one thing to drive when you’re worried about something, but it’s another thing altogether when your worries have been confirmed.”
Donovan learned the true meaning of losing everything when he reached his friend’s house and looked around only to realize what he doesn’t have anymore.
“I don’t have a television anymore,” Donovan said. “My books are gone, the crystals that I collected. My clothes. Everything.”
While many people spend time in shock as they try to figure out how to recover, Donovan turned the disaster into a positive experience.
“It’s just stuff,” Donovan said. “Stuff isn’t important when you are in touch with your spiritual side, physical things don’t matter. In so many ways it turned out to be a cleansing, liberating experience.”
He was left with what he had packed for a trip: a suitcase, a shaving bag, his car and his dog. Donovan decided to quit his job (at the Westlake Village-based company Spheres to You) and hit the road, documenting his journey in his new book, “After the Wildfire: The True Story of a Phoenix Rising From the Ashes.”
A few months before the fire, Donovan briefly traveled to Hawaii and he now knew he had to go back. He got a part-time job at a local bed and breakfast and decided to “take life one day at a time.”
“I had the opportunity to reconnect with Earth and nature,” Donovan said. “While most people rush through Hawaii, I got the chance to really be there and see everything it has to offer.”
After spending time in Hawaii, Donovan returned to Malibu and, using his savings, went on a road trip across several states with his dog, Wendel.
Donovan recalls Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon as his favorite destinations.
“The landscape at Yellowstone was absolutely incredible,” he said.
The most important lesson his travels taught him, Donovan said, was to live in the moment, to live one day at a time.
“Most days I didn’t have a destination in mind,” Donovan said. “I didn’t know where I was sleeping at the end of the day. Home was wherever I was.”
The self-published book reads like a journal and contains weekly email correspondence with friends and family while he was traveling. Corresponding photos of his journeys, the people he met during his travels and of his home after the fire are posted on a web site, so readers can get a view of the places and people he met.
The book also delves into Donovan’s spirituality.
He practices Reiki, a spiritual healing practice, on a regular basis, and being in touch with his spiritual side is what helped him get through the aftermath of the fire, he said.
Donovan had built a labyrinth in his yard prior to the Corral Canyon Fire and spent a great deal of time meditating in it before the disaster.
“The fire destroyed everything except for the labyrinth,” Donovan said. “It reached the edge of it and stopped. It is a powerful thing [the labyrinth].”
Now, more than three years after the fire, Donovan and Swain are still trying to rebuild their home.
Other residents affected by the fire in their neighborhood have either rebuilt their home, are in the process of rebuilding, or are selling their property and just walking away from it, Donovan said.
Swain is still in the process of obtaining building permits. He also lacks the monetary funds to rebuild. Donovan hopes the funds raised through book sales will help his 80-year-old landlord finally have a home again.
More information can be obtained and “After the Wildfire” can be purchased online at www.afterthewildfire.com.