When places you love are burning, there’s a permanent lump in your throat. It’s somewhere between a tumour and a ball of magma and smoke burning your insides; like the itch of ash somewhere it’s not meant to be.
It doesn’t matter how clear the air or plentiful the rainfall wherever you live now—so very far from home—you feel the pull. I should be there, too, you think. I should help. But unfortunately, that’s neither responsible nor economical. Maybe you should’ve done your S-100 training after all, when you were young and more muscle than pudding.
You might think back to the last time you thought were useful; when you drove home and waited at the top of the hill for the pilot car to guide you home through the smoke. (You might even snort when you are reminded of how you inadvertently learned that mosquitos don’t mind infernos when you were crouching on the side of the road beside your purple Civic to take a piss and your exposed skin was instantly swarmed.) You stood in the window that August, passing messages between phones and radios, calling dispatch ETAs and forecasts across airwaves. You thought you’d helped a little and returned to the city, riding the high of usefulness, until the waters came in the spring and took out the road you’d driven in on and the homes you drove past. If it’s not one thing, it’s the other.
You might also recall an ill-advised trip to the Okanagan in the summer you turned nineteen chasing an unrequited crush when the fires consumed the region and you had to take the long way home through Kamloops. But not before a dip in the lake at night with some friends, looking up at the roaring red glow rising over the hillside. It all felt so improbable then, but it’s all you see when you sleep these days. You wish it felt so far away now, like your friend singing Almost Lover on the porch of her parents’ house in Kelowna. A beautiful voice on the porch of a house that probably isn’t there anymore. Why do the bad things linger? Where does she sing now?
With West Kelowna being swept up in smoke, Yellowknife empty, and Lahaina a burnt-up husk of the vibrant, historical city it once was, there are so many feelings making the lump in the throat grow.
Who gets to hold the space where these places once were? If the fire took Toronto or New York, would the root cause be addressed? Would it still be too soon to talk about climate change? Was it too soon when Australia was on fire? Who is profiting from this pain? This normal is neither new nor acceptable.
In the meantime, you must try not to cry. You will go to work, refreshing your friends’ instagram stories as they herd animals into crates and drive away from their homes. You will feel grateful it’s not your hometown this time, then you’ll feel guilty. You’ll donate to the Maui Strong Fund while you wait in line for your seven-dollar-almond-milk-flat-white. You will try to swallow the mass building in your throat then fail at focusing on simple tasks, and your colleagues who ask you about the fires will regret doing so and you’ll cement your reputation as a bit of a downer.
Because what else can you do when places you love are burning?
The best thing I’ve heard this month
The banyan tree in Lahaina might survive. My brother and I used to play under its canopy when we were little, and we were fortunate enough to show it to my niece and nephew in the spring.
Ultimately, time will tell if the Lahaina banyan tree ever makes a full recovery. While a team is dedicated to its recovery, the tree has yet to “wake up” and show signs of recovery. And much like Lahaina itself, with this kind of trauma, only time and support can make a difference. But there’s hope that people will sit under this grand banyan again. - Hawai’i Magazine
Back to the fun kind of angst and existential dread in the coming months barring another uNpReCeDeNtEd event close to home. See you on a Friday soon and be nice to each other.