1.
In the morning, a blue-gray patchwork of fog coats all the
mountains. The haze thickens as it coils downhill, a milky
curtain that envelopes everything. Mixing with smoke from
three wildfires, it’s morphed into an impenetrable cage from
which few escape. And in this fire-prone hot landscape
I’m just one of the lost souls simply trying not to burn.

2.
Climate change—two deadly words that burn down marriages
and turn friendships ice cold. The topic hovers nervously nearby
like a nasty neighbor you’d love to avoid. The glaciers are
melting, the typhoons and hurricanes are surging stronger, and
fierce high-altitude winds are stuffing plants and seeds from
Africa into the crevices of London’s roofs. It’s as if there’s
a heavenly mandate to pair our darkest climate fears with
someone’s insufferable glee. Take the Russians—they’re all
jazzed up their frozen Arctic ports might soon be warm enough
to plant some swaying palms.

3.
The daytime view from my window reveals a token square of
lawn, a postage stamp reminder of my former water-wasting
ways. Fire and water—it’s all we talk about anymore. Even as
the Amazon keeps going up in flames, a local gender reveal
torched miles and miles of pines and chaparral not far from
my neck of the woods. That smoldering sensation in my gut
may be a friendly heads up from Mother Nature of my
impending spontaneous combustion.

4.
In the evening, it’s easy to fritter away the summer hours until
1 a.m., when blazing Vega lights up the sky. She’s bright
not only because she’s twice the size of our sun, but because
she burns hotter. The hard-to-grasp stellar physics of Vega’s
eventual death by cataclysmic fire are pleasantly contrasted
with the criminally soothing thought that burnout is
a universally shared condition. Star or human, it seems
we all burn best when burning the candle at both ends.