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07/20/2023 12:00 AMWhen I leave the office building, the first thing I notice is the smell. It’s like walking onto a campground when it’s evening and everyone is busting out the marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers. Fires are blazing, and it’s time to grab a stick, sit back, and get to toasting.
Unfortunately, that’s not what’s going on right now. Instead, I’m witnessing the effects of raging forest fires many miles away, across land and sky. If it’s this bad here, I wonder, how bad is it for the people in Canada where the fires are happening? I feel terrible for us but even worse for them.
The second thing I notice is the sight of everything. It all looks wrong. The air is murky, and the sun is the wrong color. I can look at the sun if I want to and not burn my eyes out. I’m not going around looking at the sun, but all the same, it’s disconcerting that I can. There’s a sunset sun dangling in the mid-afternoon sky.
The third thing I notice is the taste. I can actually taste the smoke on my tongue and in the back of my throat. It’s not like when you’re sitting around a firepit with your friends and a gust of wind blows the smoke at you and suddenly it’s all over you. This is more insidious. You can’t get away from it by scooching your chair to the left or to the right or even by backing up. The smoke is a fog, and it’s everywhere you are.
The smoke is even inside my house. When I get home from work, my windows are closed, but everything still smells like a cocktail of cinders and ashes.
The next day the smoke is even worse. That day passes as a strange, orange-colored anomaly. The sky has a peculiar ginger glow that begins at sunrise and doesn’t end until dark. It’s like living inside a jack o’ lantern. No one is outside. There’s something otherworldly about the sky and the silence. Are we on Mars?
The smoke situation is strange, but in an even more eerie way, it’s rather familiar. For weeks we hear about the fires but don’t feel the effects. The news reports tell us that the smoke is coming, but no one knows exactly when it will arrive or how long it will stay. When the smoke appears, everyone goes straight from work to home and back again.
It reminds me of the early days of the COVID pandemic. I know I’m not the only one. People say, “Isn’t this a lot like. . . ?” Then they drop the sentence like a hot ember. Nobody wants to talk about the pandemic. It’s a fever dream of a few years that we’d all rather forget.
In the spooky silence from my work building to my car, I glance once more at the sun. That crazy auburn ball of a sun which is being unnaturally friendly to my eyes. Where has my bright yellow friend gone?
Then, the winds shift, and the smoke clears. Literally. The sun is back to its lovely buttery tone, and the air is clean. I drive home from work, and it’s like my town has been replaced by the one in the movie Pleasantville. People are walking with big wide smiles. Kids are playing hoops with other kids and cheering as someone makes a basket. Everyone seems to have at least one dog with them. The dogs look happy, too. Bright-eyed, tongue-hanging-out-the-side-of-the-mouth happy.
We’ve been told that this will be the summer of smoke. That the winds will shift again, and the smoke will return. We don’t know when it will happen or how long it will last. Summer is my favorite season, but I’m looking forward to when the fires die out, and the air stays clean. When everyone, Canadian and American alike, can breathe easy.
Juliana Gribbins is a writer who believes that absurdity is the spice of life. Her book Date Expectations is winner of the 2017 Independent Press Awards, Humor Category, and winner of the 2016 IPPY silver medal for humor. Write to her at jeepgribbs@hotmail.com. Read more of her columns at www.zip06.com/shorelineliving