I caught a whiff of smoke the other day. Not unusual, since we heat our house with a wood stove. But this whiff was different. Just the right sort of wood was burning, just the right amount of smoke assailed my nostrils. It drifted in through the skylight as I was washing my hands and suddenly I was frozen. I knew that smell. It was the smell of a hundred burning hills. It was the smell of destruction, of crackling pines, of ash-filled air. It was the smell of a burning state.
When people think of Southern California, they usually equate it with movie stars, palm trees, and glamor. Maybe even the Beach Boys. Sure, we've got that stuff. But that's not all, brother. There are palm trees on the coast, but drive an hour east and you're in the desert. Not high or flat desert, you have to go further for those. This is different. This an arid land of tall hills covered with boulders and short, scrubby bushes. Shaggy oaks and tumbleweeds. In the rainy season, it's gorgeous. The hills are frosted with grass and the wildflowers bloom. New growth shows up everywhere. It lasts for a month or two. Then the rain stops, the wind blows, and the sun beats down. Soon the hills are brown, dry, barren. The perfect tinderbox. Every few years, some drunken fool messes around in the middle of nowhere and starts a spark. This spark leads to a flame, the flame leads to a fire, and before you know it, half the county is ablaze.
The trees were blackened, the grass disappeared, smoke filled the air for miles. Hundreds of houses were reduced to rubble as the fire scorched across the hills and forayed into the outlying towns. Trapped in the house for days on end, I paced from room to room staring through the windows. The sky was not blue. That friendly expanse was replaced with a stranger; a nasty gray overcast tinged with sickly yellow, hovering close over the rooftops. Breathing was difficult in those days. The only options were stuffy, recycled air inside, or thick, choking air outside. The smell of smoke was everywhere and ash covered everything. We kept one eye on the news, one eye on the weather. We prayed for rain.
This gave me shivers.
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