Smoldering
July and August 2020
We return from a five-week road trip to our home in Boulder. The weeds in our front yard are taller than my daughters, and the grass is charred from record breaking heat.
The color of the sky defies description. The air is thick. I cough. Do I have COVID, I wonder, as I have frequently over the past five months. Does your throat hurt? I ask my husband. It’s the smoke, he says. I hope he is right. Inside, the air is stale, but not smoky. I fall into bed, grateful to be home, but missing my parents, whom we just left. I don’t know when we will see them again. I worry about the fires burning in the mountains. I do not know then that the hottest August on record awaits us.
September 2020
On the first day of remote learning, my daughters dress up and we take pictures on the front step, like we do every year. Then we go inside and they log on and I cry. We are all miserable. Each day is a tinderbox on the verge of ignition. My Kindergartner figures out that she can close the computer if she is tired of “school,” and after five minutes most days, she decides she’s done. My third grader is miserable, but when I suggest a break, she’s too stressed about missing something to be able to step away. She sits rooted to her chair, scowling at me each time I pass. My burnout from constant negotiating is oppressive. I channel my frustration into writing letters to voters in battleground states, urging them to vote in the presidential election.
October 2020
We are remodeling our bathrooms. We might as well, we thought over the summer, when we scheduled our construction for fall. Our kids would be remote for school, and we could go to the mountains and stay in our friends’ condo. Then, our district announces that Kindergartners through 2nd graders will return, and a month later, 3rd through 5th graders.
My husband goes to the mountains with our pets, and I take our daughters to a hotel since our bathroom demo will start the day third grade returns to school. The hotel is off the highway, one exit from our home. In my mind, I see us splashing in the pool after school, see myself relaxing and watching Netflix in a hotel room with a view of the mountains while I have my first break from parenting since the beginning of the pandemic.
But our room overlooks the highway, and all we can see is the rise of the road and an office park across the parking lot. Road noise penetrates the walls. The pool is closed indefinitely. On my third grader’s first day of in-person school since the previous March, I take her picture on the scratchy couch in our hotel room, a generic painting of a bicycle hovering behind her head. We drive down the hill into Boulder. It’s too smoky to see the typical mountain view, a panorama that amazes me even after living here for sixteen years. Usually, the fires have stopped by October, but this year, they continue to ravage the west. Three of the ten most destructive wildfires in Colorado history happen in 2020, and in the states further west it’s even worse. I forgo the hike I was planning and climb into my bed in the sterile hotel room. Netflix doesn’t feel as appealing when it’s my only option. I write more election letters.
My Google search history:
Do masks protect from wildfire smoke inhalation?
Boulder County COVID data
Record temperature Boulder October
2020 election polls
Vaccine development
Average time to complete bathroom remodel
November 2020
This feels like the apocalypse, I text my husband. Our construction is delayed. COVID cases are rising. There’s no way our kids will remain in-person for school through the end of 2020. The mountains continue to burn; ash rains from the sky and leaves white flecks on the pavement of the hotel parking lot. I worry about the fires and Covid and the election. Every night, I fall asleep between my girls in the hotel king-sized bed. I close the cheap blinds to shut out the parking lot lights, but the light pierces through the edges, illuminating the girls’ peaceful expressions, which anchor me as I toss and turn.
We play at the school playground one afternoon. A friend brings coffee, and we sit six feet apart, masks down, while our kids play. A small plume of smoke unfurls from a ridge beyond Boulder. I sip my latte and brace for everything I don’t know is coming.
