A Sweet Breeze

Life is rough in southern California right now. Luckily, I live in a fully concreted-area (I never thought this lucky until recently), so we are only dealing with smoke from the fires. We didn’t have to evacuate or wonder what possessions are worthy of packing with a five minute notice. We are lucky.

Unfortunately, lots of people are not. Every day I watch the news and look at images of walls of flames engulfing trees, houses and hillsides. The skies are overcast because they are filled with smoke. A fine layer of ash coats cars. And this is miles from the fires. It feels like it will never end. And I am one of the lucky ones.

Last night, we went to bed with the window facing the ocean wide open. I thought about closing it because the news says to keep the windows closed right now due to poor air quality, but it was hot so I decided to leave it open. I had crazy dreams of people smoking in our apartment, of the apartment being on fire and my neighbor Bianca running down the hall to tell us to leave. I woke up to our room filled with smoky, humid, ocean air. My lungs felt like hell. I can only imagine what the people closer to the fires feel like.

I got up, closed the windows and said a thank you to Mother Nature for shifting the winds. A cool, off-shore breeze full of humidity and hopefully, a break.