Purple haze is in my brain. Lately things don't seem the same. Acting funny, but I don't know why. With apologies to Mister Hendrix, I'll be glad to kiss the sky once I can see it again. The haze isn't so much purple as ash grey.
Northern California is on fire. At the beginning of the week, there were more than eight hundred brush fires burning. This has provided some spectacular sunsets, but those are mediated by the fact that it has been hard to catch our collective breath in the past week.
Here's the ironic part: To start the week, I asked the kids in my summer school class to spend the week investigating this science question: Why is the sky blue? They haven't had a chance to see blue sky since Monday. For them, this doesn't seem odd. After all, they live in urban California, and even in June the fog that settles into the Bay Area in the morning can keep the sun away for more than half the day. When I asked them yesterday if they had noticed, they asked, "What smoke?"
Finally, I began to wonder if this wasn't just the leading edge of the Apocalypse. Maybe this is how global warming will take over: not in creeping bits, but all at once over the course of one summer. Right now the Midwest is underwater and California is ablaze. Droughts and floods. A nation of extremes. Come to think of it, maybe that's how it's always been.
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