This morning I woke in a planned darkness for an early meeting. The sky had been clouded and smoky the previous day, and the light was a dull orange at 6:30 in the morning. I made coffee and signed in to a presentation about the end-stages of a project that I started in 2009, and which I hope will finally bear some (if bitter) fruit.
The sun rose, but did it? The streetlights flickered off, the fog lightened... and then began to darken.
By 8:00 am it was noticeably darker than before, and by 8:30 the street lights flickered back on. The light took on a hellish quality out of a movie. I tried again and again to capture it on my phone, but the phone was too smart - white balancing the grim ashy orange color away.
The entire state, inundated with smoke from the ongoing wildfires, was blanketed with multiple layers of airborne ash and soot. By 9am, it was as dark as 9pm in my apartment, and I could not stop weeping. I ate lunch with the lights on, under a skylight that let in no light. I stood on the back porch looking out on a world I didn't recognize.
Paradise is burning and we need to pay attention.
And yet I don't know if we have enough time to stop it before it stops us.
