fires and entropy.

{The building in better days. I snapped this photo on my last day of work from my bike.}

Anyone who has been reading my blog for the last few months will know that I left a really great job about two months ago to go back to school to pursue web design. Well, my former studio and studio mates are still much loved and dear to me, and sadly, a week ago, our poor studio suffered through a large fire.

Thanks to everyone at my former company being really type-A (in a good way) most of our stuff was recovered safe if a little sooty. Water-tight containers and the meticulous putting away of things coupled with a solid back up system saved the day. But most of all, I'm glad that my precious former colleagues are safe and sound.

The fire left me with some very strange feelings in it's aftermath. Having left my job there and being really busy with my current endeavor, I felt like I couldn't really do that much to help, but I wanted to be there in rubber boots and gloves, slogging through the mess with my friends. I obsessively pictured what the new, renovated space would look like (maybe I'm an optimist?) and was struck with twinges of sadness when I thought of the odds and ends I left in drawers, the cute vintage fridge and the posters I made with Lindsay to decorate the walls, probably too damaged to be rehung. It has felt like hearing of the grave, near-death experience of a loved one; as if he was almost struck down by a bus and the retelling of the story makes you shaky and teary because of what you might have lost.

The studio will be repaired and rebuilt and it will be better and brighter than it was before. But there is a sadness in what has been lost because entropy always wins and nothing stays the same even if you wish it would.