Fall.

The wind is blowing hot smoky air around and everything is dry. I’ve made plum pie, pear cake, and eaten at least five pounds of italian plums in the last three days. Maybe ten. My son is back in school, which this year he’s doing on the phone and computer from his office - his bed - a bed he has more or less outgrown.

This time of year is always the best here, and sad, because as fall arrives I can see the winter rains looming just beyond. And if there is anything I hate at the end of summer, it’s the idea that February is coming again. The dark days when my hair never dries, and I can’t stand or prevent getting one more drop of rain on my face.

This year is different from the others, of course, because it’s my/our first pandemic, and nothing is the same as other years, except the weather and the location of things in the physical world.

I have more bug bites than any year except when I went to girl scout camp in fourth grade and our counselors had supposedly fun names like Ski. Ants, no-see-ems, mosquitoes, and some sort of tiny black rounded flying beetle that I can’t properly identify, have all bitten me over and over and over. I don’t like it, and it’s more interesting than it should be.

We are sitting indoors on this beautiful sunny day to avoid the smoke, and I’ve been using the air conditioning in my car to avoid the smoke. The windows are closed, and latched, and I even taped my bedroom window shut because it doesn’t really close at all.

What can I write? It is a lull after a very busy few weeks, and a lull that could continue for any amount of time. The pandemic isn’t going anywhere, and neither are we apparently.

I found out from an article online that the tiny town of Malden, Wa burned almost entirely to the ground yesterday. The fire came up, the police and fire department went door to door trying to find people to tell them to evacuate. A town of 200, the same size as one of my favorite towns. No one has any idea if everyone got to safety. There is no way to know at this point.

Here it’s dry, and the wind is blowing down trees, and trees are taking down power lines. We have limited fire response if something happens. And we still have tourists and residents lighting fires on the beach, in the fire pit, and who knows where else, burn ban be damned.

It is fall. Once step farther away from what was normal life, and one step closer to what will someday feel normal. For now though it feels lots like losing more that I don’t want to lose. It’s strange how quickly days pass when they feel sometimes so similar and endless. Wake up, and look out the window to see if it’s time to get up. Eventually get up. Get back in bed with coffee. This is the start of almost every day for the last 6 months. Twice I’ve had to be somewhere at 8am. Twice we’ve had to catch an early ferry. The rest of it is just this strange gliding through this half ghost town world, talking with my family, and having all the time to do nothing at all.