Presence, Security

A Year with No Fruit

September 24, 2022

My neighbor’s trees are starting to turn. Lovely to see the first colors of autumn around here.

I’m not sure when I first noticed it, and then I hoped that maybe it was just me not being very observant, not looking closely enough. Also, my friend pruned my plum trees pretty aggressively this year, so maybe they were stressed and decided to take a year off?  But then I talked with my neighbors, and we all agreed.

It wasn’t just my plum trees that were barren this year.

None of our local trees have fruit.

There are no pears. No apples. No plums. Not even any grapes.

Strange.

It adds another layer of unease to this peculiar time that we are living in. Just another consequence of climate change? I can’t think about it too much, because it shoots me down a waterfall of worry. What will happen to my bear friend, who drops by every year to gorge on pears and plums? What would happen to all of us if for some reason this continued on a larger scale? Continue Reading…

Presence, Security

This Is Not a Drill

September 17, 2022

More irreplaceables made their way to my car trunk this week. Raggedy Ann and Andy were my Mom’s.

Maybe one day you will be at the grocery store, your first trip there in a week or so, because you were out of town on an adventure with your college-aged daughter. You will be at the store and one of your neighbors will send a text that there is a fire in your town, just off the freeway.

It’s hard to know what to do at that moment.

How big of a fire? A little one like the ones that happen on the freeway fairly regularly that they knock down in a few minutes? A big one like the Mosquito Fire that broke out last week across the ridge, not so far from you as the crow flies, that has already burned more than 70,000 acres and destroyed more than 70 homes? Thousands of people are still evacuated from that one.  You see their campers and trailers all around town: at the Rec Park, behind the Bell Road Baptist church, next to the freeway in little makeshift camps.

So then.

What to do?

You look at the people around you who are shopping like everything is normal, like it was for you thirty seconds ago, and you feel a little light-headed.

You want to tell the lady wheeling her cart around you, because you are blocking the aisle, that there is a fire in your town that just started and you would appreciate it if she would freak out with you, as a show of solidarity.

It’s good that you already packed the trunk of your car with mementos that you would never want to lose. They are out there right now, safe in the Grocery Outlet parking lot.

Except then you start to remember some of the things that are still at home, things that are not in the car trunk. Like the darn Go Bags that live at home instead of in the car.

Also, your laptop.

The realization of this is a punch in the gut.

Most days, you bring it with you, because you never know when you might have a chance to write a little.

Not today. It’s on the kitchen table. Because you were just going to town to do one massage and then a little grocery shopping and then head home, where you have not been for more than a week.

Continue Reading…