three days ago i flew across the day and then the night northward towards my home in northern california. it was tuesday and there were delays at the end of holiday travel. i was stuck in the monterrey airport for many hours with children who were not actively sick but still looked a little hollow around the eyes from days and days of being unwell.
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outside it was cold.
there were joshua trees. blue mountains. achingly beautiful desert in the winter.
inside was hours of cartoons. half eaten snacks. uncomfortable body positions and endless trips to the bathroom.
we were on our way home. and at the same time winds were blowing, fires were starting, the world was changing quickly like times does sometimes.
landing we were shepherded to our car by a kind man driving a car, one in a long string of benevolent taxi drivers on the trip. we drove home in the cool foggy night, children asleep, hair tangled, food stuck to their traveling clothes.
everyone tired. quiet in the way you can be after the drone of transportation.
i woke up early on wednesday with the jolt of homecoming, eager for quiet hours before the house arose.
somewhere in the dark there i was finding the news of the fires in the south of the state. i ached as i read about the scale, the accounts of people fleeing, the destruction, the recognition of the animals, trees, and who ecosystems reduced to ash and orange.
i felt the familiar acrid taste in my mouth of how it feels to aknowledge another large scale disaster, the fear, the worry, the weight of it.
and in the early morning bleary from before I also felt this other thing, this unamable sensation that has something to do with change and the way it continues. i wondered how do we do it. how do we hold the ache and see it unfold again and again in ways we could have never imagined.
what do we do stay alive in it?
what lets us stay present to each other (human and more than human) as it all changes?
what through lines can we follow?
i don't have a real answer to this but i turned to my soft breathing in the pre-dawn darkness. i felt the temperature of the air on my skin. i let the grief settle knowing that it too would turn upside down leaving everything upset again.
