Smoke and memories

View from my living room

Yesterday the wind direction in Bellingham changed from easterly to southerly, and it blew in smoke from Oregon. From just gentle bits of smoke to this, we are now admonished that the air quality is "Very Unhealthy." No kidding. I looked up the AirNow.gov website to see just how bad it was, and I had to agree: it was bad. They have created a very cool dial on that link for you to plug in the name of your city and see what the air quality is right at the moment. 

At first glance yesterday, I thought the majority of the haze was caused by fog, since the air didn't hurt my eyes or lungs as I headed out to the coffee shop. Early on, the dial said the air was "Unhealthy" but had not fallen into the higher category. What is measured is particulate matter (PM2.5) of a certain size that is caused by the burning of trees and buildings. I decided to take a short walk on flat ground with my friend Melanie and then go home and hunker down as the day progressed. We went from a reading of 196 to 211, but just to see how bad it was in Portland, where my blogging friend Ronni lives, I checked to see what she is dealing with: 515! Unbelievably bad air! We don't have any choice of whether or not to breathe, but she has COPD and I truly hope she is able to cope with this awful air. What do people DO who have lost their home to fire and have no place to go? It's beyond cruel.

When I consider how many people are coping with the twin disasters of coronavirus and fires, it simply breaks my heart. I can stay inside, because I actually have a home that gives me shelter from the elements, and from the virus as well. This is the first time I wish I actually had an N95 mask, because they filter out particulate matter, but I suspect it would be impossible to find one now. Instead, I'll just stay indoors and read or watch TV. Maybe I'll watch Hamilton on Disney+ again, since I enjoyed it so much and it's rather on the long side. It also takes me away from the current situation and transports me back in time a century or two. If the library was open, I'd browse the shelves until I found a big thick book filled with plenty of distractions. But it's not: at the moment you can request a book and when it is ready, you can drive there and someone will deposit it into your car's trunk, with no actual contact with anyone.

What a strange world we live in these days. It's the same everywhere, I guess, but at least in Europe and a few other countries the virus is under control. Here, we are lucky to have some places that are relatively safe, but they still require stringent controls to keep it from surging again. Until we have a vaccine, I guess this will be the shape of our lives for months to come. And I am not jumping into line to be the first to get it, since I want others to take it and see how it works for them. That may seem a bit cowardly (and it is, really), but I am afraid it is being rushed to market for political purposes. I want to know if it's safe for old people like me before they jab me with the needle. I'll be getting my flu shot in a week or two, though, as I've done for years now. I feel confident that the worst I'll get is a sore arm for a day or two. I'm just hoping that we can get through this awful year in one piece.

Okay, enough about disasters and pandemics. There are still plenty of wonderful places that I can point my mind towards, and I'll just have to root around in the attic of my mind and look for something positive to focus on. Here I am cruising along, looking, browsing in the mists of memory...

And there it is: my skydiving years! What a wonderful time they were for me. For those of you who don't know the history of how I became a skydiver, it was a simple tandem jump in Loveland, Colorado, with a friend who had always wanted to make a skydive. I went along with it, because it seemed like a fun thing to do. Any of you who have ever made a tandem jump yourself know what I'm talking about. An experienced and well trained instructor straps you to his front, and the two of you travel up in an airplane until you exit together, with him or her in charge of the oversized parachute, while you experience the thrill of a lifetime! I can tell you, the long journey from the seat of the airplane to the open door is something nobody can forget. Then you dangle your feet out into space while your instructor sort of leans forward and you both enter freefall.

I certainly didn't know how much my life would change from that fateful moment until today. But the man sleeping next to me would come into my life because of it, and the thousands of skydives I have made since would become the center of my existence. I became an instructor myself, although not a tandem instructor but a freefall instructor, where you take someone out of the airplane who is wearing their own parachute. I was an active skydiver for more than twenty-five years before retiring at the age of 72. It will always be something I remember and reminisce about with joy and excitement, even today. My memories are filled with more than sixty hours of time spent in freefall, many of them with my dear partner holding my hand, gazing out at the world as we fell towards the earth. Ah, it is a wonderful time, something I will carry with me forever.

I suspect that you have times that you can recall in your past that bring joy when you remember, and you might reminisce about those days. It's also possible that you find yourself surrounded by family and friends right now, today, and that brings you joy. We don't have many choices we can make these days, but remembering and rejoicing is always available to us. In any event, we are truly a product of all we have lived through, including now.

It takes one thought, one second, one moment of positive memory to act as a catalyst for the light to gradually seep in again. —Fearne Cotton

 And with that, dear friends, I will again make my way to the coffee shop to spend a bit of time with my current coffee family, then come home to my dear life partner who sleeps contentedly next to me as I write. He is getting stronger every day, and we continue to spend our days together in gratitude for each other. Until we meet again next week, be well, my dear virtual family.