It was like living in a movie and not a happy movie. Sort of like one of those black and white nuclear fallout movies of the 1960's that I grew up watching when young. Even more surreal for this was sepia, brown and white colored fallout.
I live in Portland Oregon across the river ten minutes from downtown. We have been hit with forest fires up and down this beautiful state of Oregon, ditto Washington and California the last few weeks.
On Monday early last week or maybe it was the week before, time expands, we sat outside and enjoyed the warm fall breeze, clear skies and the air crispness and sunlight we experience here in the Northwest. It was delicious. Starting a couple of days earlier, the news started warning of conditions of fire that the warm winds could help foster. How could that be? And then I looked to the south and witnessed a brown sky. And looked to the north and saw blue skies and clouds. Reality was shifting and quickly.
That wonderful warm breeze with the dryness of air created havoc for the next several days in the forests. Between man creating arson and nature and her elements at work that was the last clear day as land became inflamed. It would lead to the worst air quality in a city in the entire world for nearly a week. It was quiet. No people, no birds chattering. No wildlife to be noticed. And, we would be wearing masks on top of masks when outside. Those Covid protection masks had to have another mask on top to clear out the particles burning and filling the skies.
It was layers of surreal. Sealing the house from outside air. Setting the air conditioning to recycle air. No going outside unless essential, leaving the television on all day for the ongoing news updates and reports and listening for the stage of your evacuation alert for your neighborhood. And knowing that the amazing countryside that we all enjoy and gives us reason for living here was being leveled along with homes, livelihoods, families and livestock compromised. The logistics of moving livestock and their haybales etc. to shelter in a city.
You don't know how much you have until you lose it. Until you have to move it, until you have to choose and be out in 10 minutes of someplace you may have lived a lifetime. Doesn't matter if it is a forest fire or the the house next door with an electrical fire.
The population had sore throats, compromised breathing and headaches. Not to be confused with Covid symptoms.
And to drive anywhere? We could see two blocks and less in distance here in the city. Surrounded by fires in outlying counties every direction it seemed. Brown fog that was not fog made of water droplets. but fog made of soot etc. Every morning we would look out and the brown fog was still there. The sun would come out as there was light but there was no breeze that is usually present. Waiting for the rain and breeze to move things. But the brown fog settled down and in and covered our states to at least 10,000 feet up and 1000 miles out into the ocean. A solid blanket that kept planes from dropping retardant and water from taking off.
And, we waited. Drove past the man at the bench outside the sports bar that had finally opened. He was vaping, the people sitting there smoking as they ate in the worst of that brown. A different sense of air quality than mine.
We waited for the first signs that the air currents and rain to do what they do and move and break down it all and push eastward into neighboring states and spread across the Midwest. That was the following Monday and it didn't happen. It would be a couple more days. And then it rained and the air cleared.
Daily television reports stopped, daily newspaper postings of 37 fires burning disappeared. Fires shrank, people went to find the remains of their lives and deal with the shock. Lives not only interrupted but forever different. There is no going back to what was even if one's property was safe.
Surreal as people started showing up places and traffic started up again. I sit outside in my yard again. It is so lovely outside. No longer sepia tones but bright greens of new growth from the drenching rain. Colors here, landslides there. People everywhere.
We lend support where we can. I breathe in appreciation. I share my breath with you and yours. Thanks to all of you who called to ask how we were doing.
Janet Barrett
Life in the Beyond/Journeys Into Enlightenment
