Thanks, Diane, for talking about the smoke in Seattle. I live now in
Corvallis, Oregon, directly south of Seattle, in the same valley system
between coastal mountains and the higher Cascade range.
We have had several weeks of hazy sky, due to the smoke from huge wildfires in California, and more recently in southern Oregon. Yesterday the wind shifted, and we are having three days of more intense smoke from fires in British Columbia. The sun is a dull orange disk in the morning and evening sky.
I keep thinking, *There's a whole forest right up there above me* (meaning, bits of burned trees). I don't even like to think of the trillions of big, small, and tiny lives that have been lost to the fires. Heartbreak is really hard to get to in sessions.
All of us around here worried about the lack of snow-pack in the Cascades last winter -- which you can see from here -- due to reduction in the usual winter rains and to warming temperatures. I had not realized till you said it, that many people don't connect wildfires with climate change -- I will start asking my neighbors what they think.
I am 73 years old and have been recovering from a long siege with pneumonia last winter; I'm on a walking program and can now do about a mile per day. Since the California smoke, I've been careful to wait till evening to walk, when a strong breeze tends to blow the smoke away from here.
Yesterday, looking out at the much denser smoke from British Columbia, I decided to stay indoors until the smoke is blown elsewhere. As an Elder, and someone recovering from pneumonia, I decided to reduce my contact with smoky air. Even without going outdoors, there have been days when my eyes stung from the smoke, so it is surely getting into my lungs as well.
Marjorie Smith
Corvallis, Oregon, USA