DURING my wedding my best friend’s house burned down. Dylan and her boyfriend, Clay, had anticipated their home’s combustion; wildfires had been raging for days in the mountains east of Tucson where they lived. As my wedding drew near, they packed their VW bus with Dylan’s bridesmaid dress, their dog, laptops and photographs, and drove cross-country to East Hampton, N.Y., where, during the festivities, they monitored events back home by phone.

Soon they learned the neighbor’s house was gone and theirs was likely next. By the time I walked down the aisle, their house was on its way to becoming swirling plumes of smoke. Afterward, they returned to find their home reduced to six inches of black ash. All that remained were some shards of mugs.

I, meanwhile, had been stockpiling crystal bowls and candlesticks. I teetered into my marriage under the weight of 100 Tiffany boxes, robin’s egg blue, and ready to hatch my new life with this man I loved. For each cereal bowl my friends lost, we received four.

Eventually Dylan and Clay took the Ziploc bag of toothbrushes and hotel soap that the Red Cross had given them and, on a whim, moved to Los Angeles. Although I admired their ability to drive off into a new life without possessions or a home, I no longer shared Dylan’s embrace of an unfettered and unmoored life. After all, I had a new 10-piece Williams-Sonoma all-clad stainless steel cookware set anchoring me to where I belonged in the world.