wildfire

Scattered

/ Tracy Abell

As is typical for me these days, I had to give myself a pep talk to get out of bed this morning. After making it to an upright position, the day turned into one thing after another. Small things that demanded my attention and action, but nothing of substance. I have zero sense of accomplishment or completion.

This entire hot, smoky Monday I’ve felt scattered, unfocused, and non-productive. Weepy, screamy, and anxious. Overheated, overwhelmed, and over it all.

I wish it would rain.

Guinea pigs for the win

/ Tracy Abell

I keep meaning to write a funny post about magpies and the neighbor’s dog, complete with lots of photos I took several days ago. But my energy level’s still not there (in large part because we haven’t been able to open windows today due to wildfire smoke which means the house is approximately two hundred degrees).

Instead, I went to Pixabay and found a photo that made me smile.

I hope these little pigs also bring you a smile.

Welcome, green

/ Tracy Abell

This photo of my front flower bed contains invasive stuff. Grass, Creeping Bellflower, and whatever tree-start that is. Do I mind? No. Not when everywhere I look outside it’s hot and dry and brown and smoky and yucky.

July 16, 2020

I welcome all shades of green.

Colorado’s on fire: we need a #GreenNewDeal

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

I live in Colorado. There are currently four wildfires burning around the state. Here’s a tweet from a Colorado journalist this morning:

I can usually see downtown Denver from my front yard. The last few days the buildings have been obscured by a smoky haze. Right now, I can see the tops of some buildings. But that “good news” is deceptive. I just spent about ten minutes outside, thinking it was okay because there wasn’t a strong odor of smoke. Wrong. I’m now coughing and my lungs are burning.

Just over a year ago, I participated in our Sunrise Movement hub’s first art build. We gathered to create a banner to pressure the Colorado Democratic Party to vote for a presidential debate focused solely on climate.

Our first art build on July 24, 2019. Boulder, CO

Our pressure worked and the representatives for the CO Dems voted YES to a climate debate. However, Tom Perez and the Democratic National Committee shut down our voices. There was no climate debate during the presidential primaries, despite the fact that the majority of people in the U.S. want meaningful action on the climate crisis.

Only two presidential candidates (Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren) included serious climate plans in their platforms. Bernie’s earned an A- from Sunrise Movement. The presidential candidate the establishment contorted themselves to install as the party nominee? Well, Joe Biden earned an F-.

My state’s experiencing a years-long drought and record-high temperatures and is literally on fire right now. Except for Rep. Joe Neguse, none of the Colorado congressional delegation supports a Green New Deal. The Democratic representatives all understand that climate change is real, but unless they push for bold and meaningful action, they are no better than the climate deniers in the Republican party.

Meanwhile, Colorado burns.

The best and most beautiful things

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.
~  Helen Keller

As per my last late-night post, yesterday we were evacuated due to a fire in the open space near our home. We hadn’t experienced that before. The only other time there was a big fire, we were out of town. (Our former neighbors took it upon themselves to come in the house to collect a crate full of framed wedding and family photos. They also put a sprinkler on top of our shake-shingle roof. Good neighbors.)

So last night as we watched the fire out our windows, we had to start thinking about what we should take in case of evacuation. Zippy and I believed it would be easy to grab the basics (the animals and the same framed photos plus passports, social security cards, etc and a few clothes) and get out. But by the time we received the automated call telling us to get out, we’d amassed more than that.

I gained some insights into my personal world view.

  • Jog bras (Bra shopping is a horrible experience, and I’d be damned if I have to go through that again)
  • An entire box of project notebooks and journals, including those containing quotes from young Wildebeest and Zebu plus one from my three weeks spent with Marilynne Robinson at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop
  • Every single photo album
  • Binder filled with negatives
  • Gratitude journal (that I’ve been actively resenting and willfully neglecting for the past couple months)
  • New container of raw cashews
  • New bottles of nutritional supplements
  • New bottle of tequila
  • Huge suitcase of family-of-origin photos recently brought back from Mom in Florida
  • Laptop, current fiction project notebook, current nonfiction project notebook
  • Camera and lenses
  • Binoculars, bird books, birding notebook woefully out of date re sightings
  • Medical records for Zippy, Wildebeest, Zebu, and myself

That list makes it seem as if I brought every single thing I owned. Not true. All sorts of stuff was left behind. Objects that caught my eye as I passed through rooms, shuttling stuff to the cars.

jesus-lizard

  • My brother’s gorgeous painting of a Jesus lizard walking on water.
  • The denim jacket that first belonged to Zippy’s sheep rancher grandfather and was passed down to Zippy’s father (Stu) and now Zippy.
  • Stu’s hat that became mine after he died last February because I’m the only one in the family with a head small enough to fit.
  • The metal rooster that sits on top of our piano in honor of friend Michelle Begley who died in January 2015, and which also serves as mascot for the monthly Writing Roosters critique group gatherings.
  • Books, many of them signed by the authors.
  • The ceramic penguin doing a power salute (and showing off underarm hair) made for me by Wildebeest in high school.
  • Zebu’s sticker-bedecked water bottle that’s been at his place at the dining room table since he left for Sweden in August.
  • The poseable Batman featured in many blog posts over the years.
  • An enormous plastic bin filled with photos that have been put in chronological order, but have not yet made it into albums.

But my decisions are a moot point. The fire was extinguished and we’re back in our house with all our stuff. Or, as George Carlin would say, all our shit.

 

 

.