For the past week, I’ve been surrounded by smoke. My old, leaky, house is encased in it. An air purifier has been the only reprieve, aside from two journeys out of the ash cloud — to Solvang and Camarillo.
By and large, I’ve been fine. My job has kept me busy posting updates to the college website (which had to put up a mandatory evacuation order Sunday afternoon), and the neighbors are old friends who are similarly grounded and eager to socialize. The dog and cats are anxious to go outside and tired of the constant human activity inside. The Christmas tree is still green.
My sole inconvenience is being confined to the indoors while the threat of hellfire glows miles away behind the foothills. And even in the case of a catastrophic fire, I have renter’s insurance — something I learned to value in college when part of my house burned down and I lost out on a couple thousand bucks in the process. Sitting in my house with my air purifier and green Christmas tree, I can’t help but suspect that I’m somehow in debt, both to the forces of nature and those who fight against it.