Fire Weather

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I thought when i began writing this that we would have a few days of scary-ish weather, a little thrill, then we'd continue on with this fucked up September and that would be that.  This has been a remarkably cool summer, it's nice there have been no fires. It seemed the one blessing in the most difficult of years.


But. 



Monday, September 7th

Three years ago, the skies were orange and the sun was blood red and ash rained onto our cars, and the air was so thick with smoke at work that you couldn't see from one end of campus to the other. I haven't been to campus since March 11th, though when I went to the country feed store in July to get Duck, the blue Andalusian, I drove past it and the weeds were high and the parking lots empty. Six months on, and who knows how long to go. I have told my faculty to prepare not only for fall quarter to be online, but winter too. I will be surprised if we are all back in the spring. I am lucky this way; so many of my friends work for colleges who are forcing on-campus learning--for all the crass reasons, all money related, all related to the grift that is capitalism and underfunding education and the neoliberal business model higher ed has chosen to follow--anyway. I am lucky that I am in the position, so far, to be making the decision that safety is more important than dollars, that my faculty and staff and our students' lives are the only things that matter. I am also lucky that I am still employed, that we can pay our mortgage and our health insurace and our lawyer bills, etc., etc.

Last night, as Jonah and I ate dinner on the porch and evening rose up from the dry earth, it occured to me once again how improbable that we are here. That the tall man who rose up, plastic cup of whiskey in his left hand, and strode across the dorm porch at Mt. Holyoke eight years ago to offer his hand in introduction, the man with whom i sat on the abandoned stage two nights later, sweating in the late august New England heat,  is the man who just grabbed the trash and the compost and brought them down to the curb, who has conversations with the Very Loud and Entitled Chickens through the back screen door, who is always covered in cats whenever he sits on the couch. 

Three years ago there were fires in the Gorge and cancer and this year I've been the one to visit the ER countless times (well, i can count. It was five times this summer, if you also count urgent care). Our boys are almost old enough to drive, and when we moved here they were still mid-way through elementary school. 

The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning and a high wind warning for the Portland area. A historic weather event, they are predicting, as a slab of cold air slams into the middle of the country and hot air pushes up from California, the winds here will start gusting from the east and temperatures will rise. The ground is bone-dry. PGE is preemptively shutting power off in the Mt. Hood forest, and it is likely that if it gets bad, our power will be deliberately cut too, the lines powered off to prevent fire. The boys have started school, though it is remote. 

2:45 PM, the light is weird, yellow. The sky to the east is hazy; a small wind has picked up.

5:33: the air is smoky, the wind grown wilder. Mt. Tabor is obscured by smoke, just a shadow to the east. The light is strange, orange, stormlight though there will be no rain. We need rain, desperately.

6:37. The air is thick, and the wind is getting nasty. The chickens seem nonplussed, though they are sticking to the corners of the yard.

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The sky today, Friday

Wednesday, September 9

The state is on fire. This is not an exaggeration. The winds have slowed, but not stopped. Inside the house, there is a fine layer of dirt on everything. It is desert-dry, 9% humidity, and at 5.20 PM it is dark inside the house, the sun a red pinprick in yellow-brown clouds. So far in Multnomah County, we do not have any evacuation notices or fires, but I am nervous. Friends in suburbs south and east of here have been evacuated.


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Friday, September 11

The air here is the worst in the world.  The house is closed up, the furnace fan running, the filter already replaced once. We are about three miles from a Level 1 evacuation zone, 30 or so miles from the edge of the Riverside and Beachie fires, which are likely to merge sometime today. The world outside is yellow, dim. Smoke drifts through the neighborhood, Mt. Tabor barely a darker smudge against the southeastern sky. We haven't seen the sky since Monday. It's cold, barely 60 degrees when the forecast had been calling for 96. There is no sun, no breathable air, and I have spent the week refreshing the evacuation and fire maps. We made a list last night of what we need to pack in our go bag. If this were the Midwest, the yard outside my window--dim brownish yellow light--would mean tornado.  Multiple colleagues and friends have been evacuated. We have had conversations with D.'s mother about when and where we will all evacuate if it comes to that. 

The boys have completed the first two weeks of their sophomore year remotely. We have traveled across the country and back again and are almost done with our two week quarantine. 

I love Portland so much. This house, these trees, these urban forests, our family, our boys, R., this life we have forged out of a humid meeting on a porch at Mt. Holyoke eight years ago. There is so much right now, this year. I can only write about some of it, for now.  I am unsure how to navigate this space, which feels violated, but I lived for much of my life believing my story was not mine to tell, and I will not go back to that. 

Salem, on Tuesday or Wednesday. Not my photo.

There is a thin layer of ash on everything. The zucchini plant, the withered tomatoes, the flowers in pots that have wilted though it isn't hot though they have been watered. The dog won't stop moaning, and my throat is burning. I took the dog outside for five minutes today and now it is difficult to draw breath without wheezing. My mouth tastes like smoke, ash. And we have it so much better than so many. So far, we are still in our house, and it seems unlikely that the fires will reach here. The boys are R. are watching Roxanne in the living room, in our quest to introduce them to all of the problematic movies of the 80s. 

There are blessings, even still. We are safe, we are together, and every night I go to sleep with R.'s hand on my hip, and the cats on the foot of the bed.

This is scattered. I want you to know I'm here. We are here. This is my story after all, and I'm going to keep telling it.


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