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As the Fires Burn


Fires are raging here in Northern California. Although they are not blazing in my town, the air is thick with smoke, the sky is hazy as the sun attempts to peek through. The fires are leveling homes and thousands of acres. What has become of all of the critters dwelled there, both human and animal? What of the lives that were lived for generations on the land? Fire insists that we look at the precariousness of life, at its’ temporary nature. It all comes and goes.

The fires feel metaphorical and they are actually happening. I feel how the smoke is clogging my lungs, how it sticks in my throat. Even with the intensity of what is happening just forty-five minutes away, life goes on. People are driving down the hill headed to work or maybe to assist at one of the shelters that has cropped up. Chaos is upon us. Life has become uncomfortable.

Fire makes it impossible to avoid discomfort. It gets so hot, so very hot that we must move. We cannot stay or we will perish. People are dying. People who were awakened from a sound sleep by sirens or perhaps by smoke and flames. People who ran out of their homes, away from everything they knew and loved, they ran only to be engulfed by flames as they tried to escape in their fuzzy slippers or bare feet.