Ordinary Grumpy

A happy hiker at the top of Half Dome. Pictures like this help me focus on all the beauty that remains. Even on a grumpy day…

I’m blaming my grouchy mood on these blasted hot days and a fire season that just goes on and on… Also, I just ate too many chips. Bother.

Here’s one of the scariest thing about Fire Season (our unfortunate, newest calendar season): starting a fire is easy (unless it is February and you get home after a long day of work and the fire in the woodstove has gone out. Then for some reason, a fire is not so easy to get going).

But in a California drought-stricken summer?

Just about anybody can do it. A toddler with matches, a second grader with a lighter. Or a “white male in a silver truck, 20-30 years old, thin build” who at 11:26 the other morning was driving around a nearby town, randomly setting fields on fire, before his vehicle somehow caught on fire, too. Thankfully,  firefighters knocked down the truck fire quickly, and got a line around the vegetation fire within minutes, keeping it to ¼ of an acre.

I think I saw a wisp of smoke from that fire. The retreat center where I do massages is close by.

Of course, the white male is innocent until proven guilty. Maybe there was a completely different story behind those fires, and the panicked callers who reported them got it totally wrong.

There’s no disputing, though, that it doesn’t take much planning or smarts to start a  Firemageddon, one that burns for months and destroys thousands of acres of habitat, houses, and even takes people’s lives.

This is quite unsettling.

Whenever I’m home and I hear a plane overhead, I go to our local Yubanet.com news site to see if there is a fire nearby. We don’t get a lot of low- flying aircraft around here, but spotter planes show up when there is a fire about. I think all of us get nervous when the planes appear.

A plane flew over just now.

That’s how quickly things can change around here these days.

In the old days, if you wanted to harm a lot of people, you would have to figure out how to build a bomb or something. Now, you just have to buy a lighter or be too lazy to put your campfire all the way out or be the kind of person who says “To heck with the rules! We will have a campfire in the backcountry because it is our right!” or use your chainsaw or weed eater in the middle of a hot day or apparently drive your truck willy-nilly over grassy fields.

Maybe we are all doomed.

It’s hard to be optimistic on yet another 90 plus degree day with nighttime lows that forget they are supposed to drop into the low sixties, if they are normal and all. But they are not normal anymore. Our lows for the next few nights will stay around 72, my gloomy weather app predicts.

I try to remember that I am a person of faith, because I apparently forget that most of the time. I believe that somehow, all things work together for good, and that love and hope win, and “grace bats last.” (that’s a quote from the beautiful Anne Lamott.)

(Hey! News update: A 100 plus acre fire just broke out in the county next to us. It has been named, ironically, the “Pleasant Fire.” Evacuations and road closures in place. Animals can go to the Nevada County fairgrounds.  People can go to the Nevada City library. So far, “five requests for help with animal evacuations” were called into dispatch. This fire was started by a vehicle, they say.)

I try to remember I am a person of faith.

I know I just said that, but I need to remind myself.

There are fires. But there are also firefighters, and pilots who drop retardant, and sheriff deputies who help evacuate people. There is climate change, but there is also Joe Manchin who cast a surprising vote that should help things a little.

My daughter went with some friends from her college hiking club to Yosemite this last week. She was lucky enough to get permits for the four of them to climb Half Dome. There have been fires around Yosemite lately, but the Valley is still beautiful, and their camping and climbing trip was spectacular.

So much loss, but so much beauty remains.

I’m trying these days to focus on the things that remain.  Like Yosemite and Half Dome and friends that hike together and the birds at my feeders and the bees that circle the Russian sage.  I don’t want to wish away these summer days; every day is a gift. But the reality is that Fire Season is stressful. I also need to give myself (and all of us) grace for all the feelings that it brings about.