Burning up

So, it's not my story and I'm generally reluctant to talk about things that aren't my story, but it's true that here in Colorado the past few weeks have been filled with heat, smoke and a general feeling of lameness for those of us lucky enough to be able to go about ordinary life. Wait--is it really okay to go out for yogurt? Isn't there a benefit dinner somewhere that we should be going to instead?

Every morning this week I've woken up before dawn and the temperature outside is within a degree or two of the hot stuffy temperature inside. I go for a run in the orangey burnished light and when I have a view of the mountains I squint and see if I can see anything (I can't. The Colorado Springs fire is so enormous it looks like a cloud and the Boulder fire still looks like a hazy smear on the northern horizon and the High Park Fire outside of Fort Collins is just air pollution by this point.) And then I come home and go about my day of ferrying kids and editing paragraphs.

And I pray and hope for rain (which doesn't come). And I feel a tiny pang of relief that the seasonal question of fireworks is off the table for this year. And I smile indulgently when Silas says longingly, "I want it to rain, for like two weeks." To dampen down the forest and make it less of a tinderbox and hopefully help prevent more homes from going up in spectacular plumes of flame? Uh, actually, no. "So we can buy FIREWORKS."

Well, not this year. No marshmallow roasting, either. Perhaps no camping at all, a tragedy, although the reason is less fire and more baseball.

Kind of a bleak, hot, smoky, head-down kind of life, and yet I'm obviously thankful. We're in our home. Our lives are not disrupted. Things are good. Or good enough.