The Park Fire here in northern California tried to snake its fiery fingers right into my world, coming within three miles of my house. It freaked the living daylights out of me, relentlessly debilitating me for a whole month.
The fire is still raging, many miles to the north, over 450,000 scares burnt, lives cut short, homes and businesses destroyed beyond repair. It’s too devastating to think about how close it came.
My neighborhood was on a on-your-toes evacuation alert for a seemingly endless two weeks. We didn’t know up from down – whether to go, stay, eat, sleep, go to work, escape to out-of-town relatives . . .
I was dumbfounded how completely the aura of fear and chaos saturated every aspect of my life. I even kept my phone by me 24/7 – which I never, ever do – staying on top of the alerts.
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