That’s the color of the sunset. Sherbet spread across the sky, mirrored on the water. Gentle waves created by floating ducks interrupt the still water.
First the burning was down south. Two nights ago the smoke rolled into Seattle like a fog bank, noxious. We closed our windows. The cats slept at the bottom of my bed; I curled my body so as not to disturb them. I didn’t sleep well. I’ve been having nightmares. I don’t remember much about them except wanting to wake up, not being able to. I turned my fan on high.
For four days before the smoke I watched Ozark. I didn’t want to do anything else. I told myself I needed a break. I guess I did.
Skies in Seattle soft opaque sherbet; skies in San Francisco a burnt umber, nearly mauve, the light so low lamps were switched on in the late morning, when they’re usually off. All the photos on the internet said “no filter.” The ones taken from inside are best, so the phone wouldn’t try to correct the light. Our phones cannot believe climate change, which is here now. We are in it. Fancy San Francisco curtains open, the air seems fine, the smoke isn’t in our primary atmosphere but aloft, dark and blotting out the sun.
“It’s cold,” my friend texts. 50. 60. Cold for California in September, cold for Marin. There’s ash on all our cars.
I smell gas from a weed whacker and think of fire, when I used to be in it all the time. I’m not that person anymore.
Yesterday I walked at Green Lake again, with a friend. A new friend. The water. The sky. The air suffused with with a soft tangerine glow. We walked past a group of drummers and looked out on the water. I wished the path wasn’t concrete, but dirt.
Do I belong here, in this city? My mom died here. I am reminded of that every day. Is it mine? I don’t know. I’ll wake up here tomorrow and the next day. Walking home alone last night I thought, how nice, to talk to someone new. To feel like I am making friends, slowly.
I listened to a Radiolab episode “Translation.” Emilie Gossiaux, who was the subject of the episode “Finding Emilie", is blind. She’s given a pair of glasses with a small camera and a tiny wire with a square at its end. She places the square on her tongue, and they turn the camera on…
I listened to her voice, her pleasant accent, as she told me about how the camera translated its perceptions into “bubbles” on her tongue.
I won’t spoil it, but I’ll say it’s a magic story, one that, if listened to while walking somewhere quiet, makes the world expand around you.
Things haven’t been easy lately. I’ve felt unmoored. I decided to move out on my own in an expensive city. I’m counting on the extra money I make from workshops to pay some of my rent, in addition to nannying. But also, I get to move out on my own. Things have been harder for many others. I am sending my love to them, and you.
Stacy