Here in the West, the snowpacks of the mountain ranges, the Rockies, the Sierra and others, are melting to swell the great rivers that provide water to millions of people. In Southern California, there is the Colorado; in Northern California, dozens of major rivers rush down to us on the coast -- from the Klamath to the San Joaquin, Sacramento, American Yuba, Stanislaus, Merced, Tuolumne, Feather, Trinity, just to mention a few.
Despite all of that water working its way through our valleys to the sea, this is largely desert country, not at all like the lake and forest lands of the Midwest where I grew up. The air smells different here, of Manzanita not farm smells. We have periodic droughts and cataclysmic wildfires in our dry years that fill our air with pollutants and challenge our energy systems to keep up with the strain.
There's industrial pollution as well, and that has been a scourge on the poorest communities located closest to the manufacturing and power plants that emit waste products and seed asthma among our young.
This year we have the Covid-19 pandemic, which is compromising the breathing ability of many otherwise healthy people -- it is a disease of the lungs. So it is natural that a sense of dread is beginning to visit us as we contemplate this year's fire season, which seems to arrive earlier every year.
Let's face it, we've all been living day to day this spring, in a state of disbelief about what is happening all around us. We're told to stay home, keep away from strangers, wear facemarks, avoid public gatherings, and abandon pleasures like brunch at coffee houses and dinners in restaurants. Life seems to have come to a grinding halt.
The problem is our personalities don't come equipped with working brakes, where a squirt of oil can quiet the squeal. We want the things we can't have and that longing will not go away with time.
Plus everything is happening amidst a swirl of ignorance about our new enemy. Where did it come from and why does it wreak havoc in one place while leaving another virtually unscathed? Nobody has answers to these questions.
Luckily the fires haven't started out here yet, but the air is heavy anyway with anticipation of when they will. California's most dangerous Covid-19 moments may arrive with the smoke that blankets areas far from the burning forests this summer and fall.
Already, most of our vegetation is turning from winter green to summer brown. There is no filter powerful enough to protect us from what may be coming our way.
***
The filters we do have are political in nature and don't work very well. Politicians squabble over causes and solutions as they position themselves against the backdrop of the pandemic. This is the strangest election year I have ever witnessed, and my memory reaches back to 1956 and the "I Like Ike" buttons of that election cycle.
Politicians fighting for advantage aren't going to help any of us breathe, when it comes to that. Barring something unforeseen, we have two old white guys once again battling for President, no women, no Latinos, no Asian-Americans, no openly gay candidates, none of the diversity that is the real America.
In California, the national election feels as if it has virtually nothing to do with us. We are a margin player; our electoral votes could be reliably awarded today. The real struggle will be waged back in the battleground states of the Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest -- in roughly a Baker's dozen of jurisdictions.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this year's cycle is Biden's promise to pick a woman as his vice-presidential running mate. Whether he wins or loses, that may lead to the Democratic Party having a woman again as its leading contender for the 2024 election. Why? Because Biden is hinting that if he wins, he may choose to serve only one term.
Whether he will win is anyone's guess. He may lead Trump in the polls in many of the battlegrounds, but it's still early and anything can happen. Trump hasn't exactly been dealt a very strong hand with a ruined economy and a nation that is struggling to mourn its mounting toll of dead, with no funerals, ceremonies, burials or memorials.
People are leaving us without any fairwells, and we are left to grieve in private.
Like you, I've lost several friends recently. The only comfort I feel is they didn't have to go through *this*. They did not have to shelter in place indefinitely, they didn't have to lose their livelihood, they didn't have to isolate themselves from friends and family.
They just had to depart, mostly alone and unheralded for the lives they led, which were exemplary in every case, each quite different from the other.
***
Morning, afternoon and night. The stages of any day are microcosms of a life. Children romp and play, shriek and dream of their futures. Young adults meet and mate, raise families, and generate the wealth that sustains those younger and older than they are. The elders reflect on the past and await the inevitable.
We can't avoid the cycles of life, but we can perdure. It's not all bad growing old. The joys may be mellow and muted but they are joys nonetheless. Inside every older person is the childish dreams and the youthful ambitions, the disappointments and regrets. There also is the sense that there is still time to contribute to causes bigger than we are.
To make a difference if we can. Here's to the elderly!
-30-
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