Smoke Gets
In Your Eyes
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I love my Montana home, which, along
with Washington, Idaho and our neighbors north and south, is burning. Love is,
indeed, blind. If we have any sensibilities at all, our hearts are on fire. Our
beautiful state is in flames. And The Platters said it all. When your heart’s
on fire smoke gets in your eyes.
The air is full of ugly
particulates. The horizon has disappeared. Our view is dull, our “Little Sky”
hovers, brown and gritty. Looks like a blizzard could blow in any minute. But
wait! Step outdoors. What a shock to feel summer heat. “Tears I cannot hide.
Smoke gets in your eyes.” It is depressing.
My weepy eyes are swollen almost
shut with “carry-on-size” bags. My nose runs intermittently. My throat is dry
and scratchy. I have sneezing marathons daily and I’m considering applying to
the Guiness World Record Book. My sneezles will be famous. I peek at you
sitting across the table. Sorry, but you look as miserable as me.
Health gurus recommend we stay
indoors with the air conditioner and air filter chugging full blast. Air
conditioners suck all the moisture out of the air. So add double dry skin, the
texture of rough-out saddle leather, to my list of physical woes. I could peel
my face and make a handbag. Yes, indeedy, I am whining.
Even more depressing, the smoky air
has cooked my brain to a consistency between smoked salmon and elk jerky. One
month, only one month of constant exposure to smoke, and my brain has withered
and dried. One month and my brain is smoked.
Never would I make fun of tragedy. Think
of our firefighters, battling blazes all summer. The fires raging across the
western states are real. Destruction is real. People are displaced, homes destroyed,
animal habitat decimated. Entire regions of forest and grasslands destroyed.
For those of us out of the path of
destruction, we don’t know the short term/long term effects of breathing smoke
day after day. It does my heart good to hear that strenuous activity such as
football practices at area high schools are cancelled or curtailed. Despite the
“fact” that we were invincible when we were young, we need to protect the
health of our young people.
The last few days I have been the
guest of my high school buddy, Karen, at Floweree. You’ve seen the signpost
just past Carter on the road to Great Falls and wondered what in the world was
at the end of that gravel road. Now you know. Last house on the right.
Generally when we get together, Karen
and I are sharp, witty. Repartee bounces back and forth like a ping-pong ball
on the table. Not this visit. Wit is noticeably lacking. Thought processes pour
from our wizened brains like proverbial molasses in January. Our minds
generally grind out what we want but slow and somewhat unsteadily.
At times we stare at one another
with fear. Is this the short course to dementia? Fear is real. Eventually our
errant thought, hers or mine, lands with a plop and we sigh with relief.
Which reminds me, we each handle our
inability to suck in enough oxygen differently. Karen tends to take short,
frequent breaths. I sigh. I sigh heavily and deeply; I sigh a lot.
Then came the winds and a reprieve,
relief, however short. Karen and I drove into Fort Benton for lunch at the Wake
Cup Coffee House. On the way home the wind whistled through Karen’s
not-quite-shut car door. Sounded like a Montana blizzard in January. My brain shifted
into gear. “Funny how our physical senses are inter-connected. If we shut our
eyes, Karen, listen to the wind, we could freeze to death.”
On a daily basis I view most things from
a tilted, quirky point of view. But I think I generally have a pretty good head
on my shoulders. In my opinion. Until this past month, when the fires have smoked
my brain. Dis-function, malfunction, non-function, scrambled smoked brain! While
my love for Montana is blind and smoke gets in my eyes, smoke also makes me
stupid. I’m flying to Seattle. Brains and eggs for breakfast?
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
September 3,
2015
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