i woke this morning after a cool night. to a cool morning. finally. and with a fully formed PLAN i loved so much , to send to Kamala Harris. I thought it was brilliant. It rose from all about that town in Ohio, Springfield, how she could use the complex challenges there to show as in, demonstrate to the American people how her proposals could work. so i made my tea and continued thinking and felt so good and it was cool , and soon i clicked on the fact that this was what i'd been wondering a while now, to understand my recent uhhhh, state of mind, of spirit .....to understand what's happened this summer, since that evacuation the second day of July when the days then resulted in the death of the Garden, when it just kept being over 100 degrees day unto day and i felt so....Something i could not name. But it had hold of me. So, thinking all this, i did the thing with/for the Goats and Minnow and Puppy, i waited at Jack's gate for Uno and Dos, finally coming up and back in to cook...my favorite thing of all....the french fries and pan fried Snapper condiments of ketchup and Sriracha for the fries and Elote (no cheese) for the Snapper and everything was great and i had a very doable To Do list for the day but i would take a quick nap...one of the 20 minute ones i'd just begun drifting off when there was that unmistakable sound of the FIRE ALERT.....the Watch Duty and almost simultaneously sirens coming up Olive Highway just "over there"...
it was 1 and a quarter miles away from here. 7 acres. But the sirens multiplied and within minutes an Update of the alert...Air assistance and again almost simultaneously, the planes flying overhead, helicopters skip the middle within an hour or so had grown to 80 acres but the wind took it in another direction from the Hill so i looked at the app map....and yes...the yellow of Evacuation Warning and yes...here in the OSE zone....Oscar Sam Elephant....but not our number and the call from Alyssia that she was on her way and when she got here she said that if i went just up to the top of the hill here to that little meadow just over there, i could watch them do their thing....could see the water and retardant pouring down as they fly in spirals over the Fire but i didn't want to see it. I had no will. I gathered a few things to load if our OSE became yellow.
a FEW.
a very FEW.
way less than ever before. the pencils. that one spiral drawing book. the "fire proof" Go Bag with important papers, my proof of existence....of a life..... the Tina quilt, the Web from LaceLady my pillow Batteries and lap top. That's it except for the above and the 3 little Tay drawings from the Altar. the Butterfly calendar.
we sat. watching the updates, listening to all going overhead. Throwing the ball for Minnow. Keeping Puppy around by talking to her. Awareness of where Goats were, ready to call them. Jenny called from work in Chico where she was also watching the Fire app....ready to leave. Jeff picked up Emrie from school. we watched. listened. our ears pricked. on alert. and finally, Forward Progress was stopped at 80 acres and then after some more time, Alyssia went home to cook dinner for the kids. It's 11:11 pm. Tomorrow i'll Begin Again.