(internet photo)
Last week today the fires started and at this moment things are pretty calm with more high winds predicted, but not the hurricane winds of last Tue-Wed and the air is not quite as bad but still “Poor”. The big fires are not even 50% contained but it seems no structures are threatened.
Yesterday Santa Monica retracted both warning and mandatory evacuation orders. I’ve been four blocks from a Warning zone for most of the first five days and a mile from a Mandatory Evacuation zone until yesterday. I’m watching local news, listening to the radio, reading articles, googling constantly during every free moment, which has led me to a thought – re-traumatizing or inuring?
I’m actually feeling pretty numb over it all. It is as bad as or worse than everything you’ve been seeing on tv and we all have family and friends who have lost everything, a lifetime of things. It reminds me of a volcanic eruption, with almost no notice, destroying everything in its wake, and not a chance of stopping it.
Maybe I’m not so hot on America these days but I’ve always been such a fan of LA, family and friends, places to go and things to do, cultural icons, gardens-museums-sporting activities, fine educational institutions, livable weather, and more and more. Want to do something? Yes, you can do it here.
But I fear (oh I do so hope I’m wrong!) it could be this for the rest of my life. It’s going to rain one of these days creating more misery, mud-lakes-rivers-falls, oh my goodness. And Trump hates California, as he has so often threatened retribution, punishment for speaking against him. All he’s managed to say about the fires is to blame his enemies and all his surrogates have done is talk about ‘strings attached’. The blaming is going to be incessant, and the lies. Already with the lies, so many lies, and the more relentlessly you repeat lies, well, you know having read history.