Smoke in the air

I woke looking to the north-east and I could see a white cloud along the top of Bastion Mountain. I thought, “Oh, it’s going to rain today”, and I checked the table on the porch where I could already see that the dew had pooled in the night, … but no rain yet. A few hours later Bonnie said, “Oh, that’s not the mist of a cloud. That is smoke that has come from the fires raging in Oregon. I think this is just the beginning of it.” And she was right.

The smoke has crept in until it covers the water which means when I look out I can only see the cabins that rim the perimeter of the lake which I can see beneath me.

Bonnie wondered, “shall we drive to Moiya’s to stay out of the smoke?” after Moiya had invited us over for lunch. I thought about that drive versus what can only be a two-minute walk between my house and Moiya’s. I thought back to other years when our home was filled with smoke. Those are the years when the claustrophobia of staying inside seemed to equal the danger of the smoke to our lungs outside.

While we’ve been living in a pandemic for almost five months now, six months, really, the danger of the pandemic has to be imagined in my mind. The danger of too much smoke inhalation that I now see is so visible, that seems more like a pandemic to me, though that is just danger of smoke inhalation, not something that the whole world has to worry about.

The fall rains and autumn winds will take away the smoke, but the dangers of the pandemic will still be here.

... Dave on my deck ...

I hear Dave Wood talk about the pandemic.

He lifts his arms off the table and spreads them, holds them apart for a second as if he has caught time and the virus in that space for me to see. 

He moves both of his hands toward  me, as though he has caught them for a fleeting moment in time and space. He holds them for a second as if that second represents the six months of coronavirus.

It seems like a l-o-n-g second.

Then his hands fall open to the table with a thud that marks his powerlessness over this danger.

I can see these thoughts on the lines of his face, a face that is usually stoic, even unreadable. But when he talks about the pandemic, I l watch the lines on his face as well as listen to his words.  The lines deepen.

I change the subject.

“You don’t like playing games, do you?,” I asked him. He nodded.   He doesn't.  I felt a solidarity with him. I don’t like to play because the cards don’t have print that is readable to me anymore, nor are board game pieces legible anymore.

Dave did play a game with us, but when the game he ended, he said, “Well, I’ve wasted three hours of time. Fun for me is chopping wood.” I don’t think I have the same feelings that he does about the time we’ve just spent together, though I’m holding some of the frustration of having a good hand that will not play out for me and there are 9 iterations of this hand. I feel that frustration every time 10 cards are dealt to me, yet I win the game. I worry how the others must feel toward me since they were working with the same frustrations. I may have added to their angst because sometimes I gave them a skip card, and I wonder why I even worry because I play games so seldom.

I woke this morning again taking some of those very deep breaths of somewhat smokey air to the bottom of my lungs, the breaths I like to take when the air is fresh and I can almost taste the cedar that I can smell. As well those are the breaths that are coached by the physiotherapists or any therapist who is trying to help me remember the joy of being in the moment , using the full capacity of my body. Unlike the fear of getting sick during the pandemic, I know the air outside will be clean again. I’ll be able to see it, and walk in it, still conscious of the virus terror that Dave Wood helped me imagine, there between his hands.