Walking in Smoke

The woods by our house are on fire.  Not by accident.  Cal Fire trucks have been up and down the ancient service road across the creek for months tending the forest, thinning trees and piling up deadfall and branches.  Occasionally, from our windows we see a column of smoke from a distant burn pile, but today our little canyon was awash in grey haze.

With time on our hands these days, the "we should take a walk"-talk has turned into actual, real live, grab-your-shoes-and-water-bottle walks.  At first we strolled around the neighborhood (we can pass almost a dozen houses in a half mile.  I consider that a neighborhood, of sorts).  Today we headed up to the lookout, a steep, mile-each-way hike that leads to the most gorgeous 300+ degree view of four counties.  From up on the mountain you can see two lakes, clear out to Sacramento, and over your shoulder, all the way to the snowy Sierras.  It's a moderate hike, but one I haven't done in months because of a recent Hashimoto's flare up.

As we set out, we saw smoke and figured they must be doing more burn piles up the way.  Burn piles?  No. Burned hillsides, scorched slopes, billows of smoke from smoldering logs and charred earth.  And fires, actual live fires burning along logs which lay against the trunks of living oaks, and flames climbing vertically up the sides of tall pines.  It was eerie, like the set of a scary movie here, in the same place that just six months ago was a terrifying powder keg.  I understand with my logical brain that burning the forest now is safe...er...ish.  I mean, it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and it rained a bunch last week.  But am I the only one that thinks it's totally freaky for someone to set the woods on fire and walk away?  There wasn't a soul in sight.  Standing there, the only comfort I found is knowing that the planet has a godly capacity to heal.  Earth burned to blackened ash redresses herself in glorious green in a season or two.

Walking the old fire road through clouds of white smoke has added to the surreal feeling of the days we are all experiencing.  Much like the preemptive burning of forests, we are seeing the damage and fear around us resulting from the need to shelter in place, but we of course know that the infernos of summer, and those of this pandemic -were it to break loose on an unsheltered population- would be beyond devastating.  We do not err, but stand confidently on the side of caution.  I worry for hourly workers and others whose jobs have evaporated in this crisis, for those left mourning and for communities devastated by trauma.  Our family prayers are long and earnest for our family, friends, neighbors and the world. 

From the view at the top of the lookout I am blown away by the thousands of trees, the hills and valleys that have surrounded me in my over-scheduled oblivion.  I forget that it is all around me when I am puttering through my days, only noticing the nearest branches that frame whatever country road I am traveling on at the moment.  I can't see the literal forest for the trees, and I struggle seeing the people in this disease; the individuals behind the numbers, stats, reports and hopeful bell curves. 

So we walk in the smoke, hoping, trusting this fire won't overcome us, and when the haze clears, bracing for the sight of smoldering hillsides, praying in faith that summer will heal us.

The Distance Between Trees

Nano invited me on an evening walk with her tonight, and Daddy joined us.  We wandered the long way down to "The Creek", not to be confused with "the creek" to get to Old Spring Road.  The Creek, as the kids call it, importantly, is where the water of the creek that darkly skirts our property line spreads out over a larger collection of flat boulders in the sunshine, joined by a few hidden springs, creating pools and cascades that are a little more fun to play in and far more showy than the sometimes trickle of water that dutifully borders our lot, with its occasional pomp and circumstance of a stormy day or spring snow melt.

As we picked across the closest thing to a bridge the stones have to offer, Natalie urged us forward, worrying, I think, that we might stop and turn back here as we often do when we reach this point.  But our pauses were not reluctance; we were getting the first looks at what is left of the woods below our property where the forestry service had recently been manicuring (today, boys and girls, the role of the forestry service will be played by low level criminals in orange jumpsuits with chainsaws and 1-2 years left till parole.  Oh, yes, a few DID escape on foot, thank you for asking.  Nothing like getting a recorded call from the Sheriff's department while you are 500 miles away on vacation, that, by the way, if you see three 6-footers with tats on their faces, please kindly call 911.  Not a huge problem, right?  They might simply do a Goldilocks impression and use our house for two weeks.  But oh, wait.  Number Two Son and Grandpa are still home.  We call Grandpa, and he jokes that he might just invite them in for a poker game.  Oh, my... he was kidding, right?).

Guy and I were disoriented by the massive changes.  Our once thick, lushly packed woods (because once you live near woods for a while,  ownership is simply a mater of sentimental opinion), now gave the distinct feel of a state campground, minus the fire pits and tired picnic benches with dented, green, metal trashcans chained to them.



My heart was two parts broken and one part thankful.  When you live in a forest, the first year you see the trees.  The second year, you can't see the forest for the kindling.  Every dead tree with low, dry branches (literally called a "fire ladder", by the way), seems as menacing as a dark figure in a seedy alley once had, back when we had to be careful taking the trash out at night, not because of bears, but car-thieves.  By year two, you WANT the forest to be tidied up.  The wild fires of the last two summers still smolder warmly in memory.  And what most folks don't know is, if the forest around your house has been tended to, and if a fire does come, you make the fire department’s short list for attempts at saving all of your earthly possessions.  There is the grateful part.

I tried not to look too long at the massive piles of dismembered tree limbs along open slopes in neatly spaced intervals, or to notice that I could see too far, and too much sky.  Instead, I talked Sunday-evening shop with Guy, and answered the constant bubble of six-year-old inquires, all the while using a stalk of horsefly weed to shoo the gnats from my ears and nose.  



We followed ant trails into large circles of chaff littered about their nests in perfect symmetry, the castoffs of late-summer grass-seed collecting.  Nano gathered and then abandoned many heavy rocks as we walked, always favoring the pink ones.  We walked further than we ever had on the ancient road, wondering at pioneers that may have walked it too, until the pines gave way to mesquite scrub, and we heard backyard chickens in the distance, signalling we were headed to civilization and should go back to our woods, such as they now were.



As we walked toward home, I looked up the lengths of the mammoth pines around us and stopped, smiling.  There they were, hearts, high up where branches had once broken off, leaving heart shaped scars in the mother tree.  I would not have seen them had the forest still been crowded in around them like before.

Earlier in the day, Ethan had come for a visit.  Two parts joy, one part sorrow.  He never stays long due to crack-of-dawn work alarms, but I relished seeing him.  As I hugged him, I felt through his shirt that he is skinny, but not too skinny this time, and his smile twinkled in his eyes.  Long black curls tumbled out from under his cap.  His work clothes showed the long, industrious days they have endured.  He laughed, and hugged the Littles.

He has a belated birthday gift for Jonah Boy; a small but surprisingly strong crossbow.  He passes it my way for parental pre-approval, and we both know I won't say no with Jonah just in the other room, waiting anxiously.  The funny thing is, that at that same age, I wouldn't have given in to a crossbow for Ethan, my risk-taker, my wild one.  But Jonah, his hair neatly combed to the side and set with hairspray seven days a week, needs something a little more adventuresome than playing Nerf darts with his little sister.

Jonah's reaction fills Ethan, you can hear it in his chuckle, and he sets in right away on safety (thank you!) and how-to's.  We pull a few castoffs out of the dump pile that waits in the driveway, and before he knows it, Jonah has his own shooting range, target and all.





We watch them shoot for a while, Jonah forever careful and reserved, and then visit and eat watermelon.  Ethan even tolerates a few pictures.  It had been 5 years since we have had a family picture together.  I love it, pixels, blur and all.

(Maybe there were a few more pictures than he knew about...)

But the sun hung low and it was time.  It was just so good to see him, and so hard to see him go.  He is learning so much, having a whole life I don't really know much about.  But as he talks of electrical panels and conduit and what he will do to get my kiln set up for me next time he is around, I am beaming.  It's so strange when your children break away completely from the mother tree.

But I guess the space between us lets me somehow see him better.