Sun and smoke

Here’s all I could see out my window around 11 a.m. today. 

I am looking into and smelling the remains of a million acres of trees, birds, poison ivy, mice, raccoons, bears, squirrels, houses, ferns, cars, laptops, trash heaps, plastic water bottles, cameras, batteries, microwave ovens, Lego kits and Batman action figures, Barbi dolls, nylon undergarments, down jackets, naugahyde recliners, blue jeans, vinyl shoes, television sets, grandma’s dishes, altars with votive candles, plastic shower curtains and the rings that held them. Some lives are blasted. Some lives are lost; the count will come later.

Wise, kind, patient Ms Mun offers me her observation on what humans need. “We need to be seen, to be touched, to be understood, to be connected to our ‘home’, in what ever form that may take. We also need to be of service and to be indebted to our community - that is to form relationships through giving and receiving.” She knows what beings need, bee-keeper and mom, partner, Blipper, gardener and pet-minder in Australia, where there were fires like these some months back.

In the USA we are near Civil War, with distrust, rising fascism, violent racism, a pandemic, fires, and desperate people forced to abandon their homes or be incinerated. There are self-appointed right-wing militias who have heard from their maniacal networks of hate that “Antifa from Portland” started the fires and must be stopped. At any cost. Guns cocked, they are blocking highways and searching cars for what they imagine “Antifa” looks like. As they do that, Antifa from Portland are collecting water and food and distributing it to houseless people and evacuees. They are piling wagons with food and water, sanitizer, masks, and packages of menstrual pads, pulling the wagons among tent villages where those who lost their jobs and housing in the pandemic have gathered to protect each other from violent police and those who seek oblivion in drugs or alcohol. 

Antifa. Antifascists. They heed Elie Wiesel, who said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”

We aren’t sure where to interfere first. I gaze into the yellow wall beyond my windows. I can no longer make out the features of nearby buildings and hillsides. I have never before seen such thick smoke. I am sleepy, I cough, rub my itchy eyes, breathe into a headache, and am grateful for a place indoors, for fresh filters for the air purifiers my son bought me two years ago. The wall of smoke resembles a Mark Rothko color field.