Being Quiet

Here in the Bay Area, we are thirteen days into fire air. The Camp Fire, four hours north, has been burning since sunrise on November 8th. It has burned more than 150,000 acres and they don’t think it will be fully contained until November 30th. Now instead of getting out of bed every morning to push the button on my Mr. Coffee, the first thing I do when I wake is check purpleair.com to see how dangerous the air is in my town. Today, November 20th, the PM2.5 count is 176. Still red. Still dangerous to breathe.

PM2.5 are the fine particle air pollutants that our lungs are not built to filter. Fine particulates that are less than 2.5 microns in size travel deeply into the lungs and can cause long-term health problems. We Californians all know more about these particles now than we ever wanted to. San Francisco continues to be the most polluted city on earth, and it probably will be until that longed-for rain, forecast for tomorrow. Meanwhile, we don’t really know what we are breathing. Words like asbestos, lead, toxic waste hover on the periphery of my thinking. I don’t want to let them in. 

Writing about the fire is difficult, because whatever contaminants I am breathing in down here, and however my life has been impacted by having to stay indoors, wear a mask, and limit patient visits, it’s all so minimal compared to the suffering of those up north. The death toll rises daily, though the list of the missing is now getting shorter, after rocketing up to 1200 last weekend. I don’t even know how many people have been displaced. Fire refugees. A new tribe of humans.

So I want to write instead about the curious quiet that has settled over the Bay Area during these smoke-filled days. I drove into San Francisco last Saturday to meet a friend in from Ireland. The weekend before Thanksgiving, the Golden Gate Bridge should have been thronged with tourists. It was like a ghost bridge. Usually towering up proud and gorgeous out of the fog or the sunshine, it loomed out of the smoke like a grieving shadow of itself. 

People are staying indoors. When they go out, many are wearing masks. Many, but not enough. I see folks out with their toddlers and no masks. It breaks my heart because kids breathe so much faster than adults, and metabolize pollutants differently. Their developing brains...asbestos...lead...solvents...yeah. You get the gist.

So it’s one of the biggest holiday weeks in the US and the streets are weirdly empty. It has been a hot, dry, sunny November. A single day of rain so far. But the air is hazy, the sun shines dark gold, even red sometimes through the smoke. And the trees stand still in the breathless murk, hanging on grimly to their rustling dry leaves, waiting for rain.

But it’s the internal quiet that I have noticed. Usually restless and a little over-invested in being ‘productive,’ I find I have slowed down, physically and emotionally. Staying indoors has narrowed the focus. The mood is somber to begin with. We’re all waiting. We are all in mourning, in a kind of prolonged shock: and grief and disbelief make you slow. 

We are also in fear. I repacked my Fire Bag - a backpack full of passports, cash, essential papers. We’ve been over our fire evacuation plan, trying to imagine the scenarios. If you can’t get through to me, call Uncle Steve, let him know you’re ok and I’ll do the same. But the truth of it is, people got burned alive in their cars trying to get out of Paradise. It doesn’t take an overactive imagination like mine to see my daughter’s Jeep burned out on our road.

I want to honor the fire victims, the displaced, the firemen, and all the people whose lives are forever changed. The news cycles move on to the next disaster. Paradise may rebuild, but it’s a graveyard right now. Humans are resilient and the wonderful stories of heroism and generosity coming out of disaster have not surprised me. It’s hard to know how to adequately honor them though. After donating, volunteering, and sending messages of support, it seems like being quiet is the appropriate response.