Thursday, July 3, 2008

Gap Fire and the 4th of July

For the past two years, our country's birthday has coincided with fire. This year's fire is making its way toward communities where friends live. Several friends within our sphere of community have already been evacuated and so far, everyone we know is okay. So far.

The sky is brown and orange. Beautiful. Ominous. I won't say apocolyptic, because that's just silly. Watching the sky turn brown and orange from smoke is like being out on a boat in an ocean; it puts things into perspective. We are small compared to teh 30-60 foot flames shooting up in the air. One site I read a bit ago reported the flames to be 100-200 feet.

We go along every day in our humdrum routines. We stress about the boss, or the co-worker who annoys us but we must tolerate them to keep up appearances. We talk about trifling matters. Some seem like the essence of life. Yet a fire, a storm, a sudden encounter with nature shifts your perspective in a way that says "You have been sleeping! You are now awake. Really awake!"

I often talk about the idea of being happy when the pest otherwise known as the human race is finally wiped out. Yet, when anything real happens within close proximity, such professions disappear.

I hope that my entry tonight will be just a little commentary about a fire that seemed big and went away. May the Gap Fire go away soon!

2 comments:

Trekking Left said...

Yes, the annoying co-worker does seem dwarfed by things like a big fire.

George said...

An annoying boss, that's an entirely different matter....