The West is burning. It’s been burning for quite some time. From Los Angeles to British Columbia, it’s all ablaze. Their smoke bothered our Labor Day Weekend skies, casting a silver shade over our otherwise perfect sun. The forests are burning and the grasslands, too. Animals are hiding in swimming pools. The smoke chokes. The residents lie fitfully in their smoky beds, gasping through the thick air. I’ve been told for ages that mountain air is crisp and delightful, clean and pure. This is the other sort of mountain air, and it’s no good, not for the animals, not for the fish, and not for the residents.
The South is flooding. Palm trees swaying, ripped from their shallow, sandy home. Street signs twist in the wind. Garbage from one house blows to another, from one county to the next, up the coast and around and around. The storm was coming for a while, so slow it seemed as though it might never arrive. But it did, and the storm surged and the houses flooded and the people blamed the government. Weathermen braced against the wind in displays of strength and hubris, delightfully unaware of the mockery their spectacle encourages.
In Texas, the stench of drying flood waters fills the air. It’s hot. And wet. Too hot and too wet, and the air is still and it smells and there’s no where to go. Wait, they must. The waters have receded, or they are receded, how could I know for sure? The flood waters are terrible and the wildfires are burning and the smoke follows its stream to the other parts of this country and the one above. An earthquake shook Mexico, shook it something terrible. But the news has no time for the earthquake and the fires and the other hurricane. There is a storm in Florida and it’s blowing and it’s flooding and some would say it looks like the worst thing they’ve ever seen. Others say it’s nothing but a summer storm. Either way, it’s all terrible and it’s all bad.
And here I am. I’m looking out my window like I do every morning. The sky is blue. Powder blue to be precise. The trees are fading but they’re still very green. The grasses in my office garden look beautiful, even the coneflowers with their dark, dried seeds and leaves look delightful. It’s crisp this morning, like it has been for the past dozen or more. There’s no reason to think today will be unlike those other days, with mostly sun and some thin, wispy clouds. Are those clouds or just the remnants of the western fire? No one knows. We don’t really care. It’s just another Monday and the temperature is perfect and the grass is green and later the lake will fill with some September activity. Not too much, just enough. That’s the thing about the Midwest. The coasts call it boring. The mountains call it flat. New York doesn’t know where it is. But on this morning, with so much to worry about in the world and so much remembering to be done, there’s a place where life happily marches along. It’s called the Midwest.