Fire Flight

My husband and I disagree about how to answer the question, “Where are you from?” He thinks that when people ask that question, they want to know where you were born and raised. I think they want to know where you live, your rooted home. As a born-again Californian, who has spent far more of my life in NorCal than anywhere else, why on earth would I answer that question by saying I’m from upstate NY? I have no clue what life is like in upstate NY these days other than it snows. A lot. And that’s why I left. So when Ron and I travel, and we start chatting with strangers, and they ask us, “Where are you from?” Ron answers, “Chicago,” and I answer “Northern California.” Then they give us a confused look because they could have sworn we are married. That’s my cue to say, “We make it work.”

I’m not just from NorCal, my heart is in NorCal. Until I moved to Mendocino County, I felt displaced in the world. But when we went out to the Ranch in 1991, I felt like I had finally found my home. I settled in, put down those proverbial roots. (Which, I suppose then grew into large proverbials or something.) I raised my children here. I made powerful friendships to last a lifetime. I became attached to places. I adore this landscape. I know the seasons. I know the trees here, the plants, the wildlife. I know what to grow in my garden. I know how destructive deer can be and when cityfolk visit and coo over the deer, I mutter “rodents.” And those evil, demented wild turkeys. “Oh how cute,” say friends from L.A., and I say please take them with you when you go. They dig up the garden, eat my fruit, break my trees in half, and, pardon my French, merde on everything (in excess – a bird has no right making such big merde). I know this land. But now, in the past couple of years, the land has stopped behaving as expected. And I know nothing.

Global warming has raised the temperature in Cali  so much that our dry, hot season is far longer. You can’t fool me with fake news and denials. I have lived here for 40 years. The temperatures in the hot season are much hotter. There are many more extremely hot days. Summer starts earlier and ends later. Usually we have less rainfall in the winter. The plants dry out and turn to husks, and they do it rapidly at the beginning of the summer. Trees dry out inside and fall down. In the late summer, deer eat things they never used to eat because there is so little out there with any moisture in it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually became carnivores just to get some fluid in them.  (Vampire deer? That’s a concept.) When a fire starts, it goes crazy and can’t be contained because the whole world is tinder. And I am not a lobster in a cookpot, oblivious to the rising temperature. I know it’s happening. So the question is what do I do about it?

Should I leave Cali, my beloved home, land of my heart? I’m not the only one. Others who live in my paradise have shared the same thoughts with me. Should we leave? I understand that one of the greatest reasons that fires are so deadly in Cali now is that more and more people are living in places that are close to natural environments. Frankly, I don’t know why anyone would choose to live far away from trees. I have to live near nature. Some of my best friends are trees. Houses near nature is exactly what my town is. It is exactly where my home is, and that is why I have friends whose homes have burned down. When we were on standby for evacuation for a week in August, and I was driving around with my most prized possessions in my car, I had to face the possibility that I could lose all my stuff. Yes, I know, it’s just stuff. But I like a lot of it and I want to keep it. I also like to avoid drama, and having your house burn down qualifies as drama. I also couldn’t fit all the things I wanted to take in my car. What scared me the most was how long it took me to chase down my cats and get them into the house. What a horror it would be to lose my old girls in a fire. Ron would be a basket case. He’s a hoarder. All those old shoes and magazines he is so attached to, well that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

So now the forecast, as I write this, is rain coming in on Tuesday. We just need to make it a couple of more days and then we might be OK for this season. We might be able to take a breath (literally – a breath of clean air) and relax for this year, knowing we made it through the peak of fire season. But May is just around the corner. So I find myself wondering where I would go if I left my home. This brings to mind my ancestors, wandering Jews all of them, who fled oppression in Eastern Europe and Russia, leaving family, community, lifelong friends behind, and sailing across the ocean with no more than a potato in their pocket. (Perhaps they should have taken something more practical.) How did they do it? At what point did Grandpa Sidney say, ”time to go,” and kiss his parents good-bye. He never saw them again. Hitler killed them, and most of his family. They should have set sail with him. But I get why they stayed. It’s so difficult to pull up stakes and leave.

I feel foolish for staying here. It’s only a matter of time before this land of my heart burns up. I should find a sensible place to live, where it rains all year round, and is also safe from many of the other hazards of Climate Change, such as flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, massive snowfall, mudslides, heat waves. I realize these natural disasters have always been with us, but, seriously people, not in this profusion. If you think these are still completely “natural disasters” then you might as well stop “believing in” gravity. Some of those Midwestern states that you would think are safe, are not. They are susceptible to flooding, heavy snowfall, tornadoes, and a host of other traumas. Some Climate Change researchers in Portland recommend moving North of the 42^nd Parallel. That runs from the southern borders of OR and ID through the middle of PA and NJ. If I go above the 42^nd Parallel, then I will go as a Climate Change refugee and will live out the rest of my days exiled from Eden.

Oh, California, how I love you, how I mourn the loss of this beautiful land that has turned to dust in the wake of the fires. I think it is symbolic that the worst fire in our state’s history happened in Paradise. I am grateful for every day I have lived here. Now more than ever as I contemplate fleeing ahead of the inferno. If I do decide to go, then in years to come, when someone asks me, “Where are you from?” I will still say, “Northern California,” even if that’s not where I live anymore.