network

"Weaving through the coast mountain range in the spring is about as predictable as bull-riding. Sheer faces of jagged rock glisten in the damp and conifers ejecting towers of mist that rise and settle in suspension over the valley and the little metal boxes who haste through it. The sky releases dense rain and windshield wipers at their fastest clamber to keep up with the rate the windscreen is obscured. Just through the thick of it the clouds break and allow the sun to reach back through to bless its children, but this is a mirage. Before long the overcast closes back in and with it the oppressive rainfall, the hazard of the road climbs tenfold again. At times the side windows streak and speckle with water, making blind spots truly blind. In this weather mountaintops have a habit of peering out from under the plume, greeting hello and goodbye as you continue.

Alongside on the highway a lifted black F350 Super Duty defines excess in the fast lane. You can taste the arrogance in the exhaust fumes and when the tires cut through puddles the collateral splashes straight into the windscreen, as if the insatiable driver spit into your face personally.

The downpour and its implications are welcome here. More and more often our summers are replaced by wildfire season. Instead of plumes of mist and comforting blankets of fog we are buried by layers of smoke. Smoke that dries you no matter how much you drink, the smoke that stings no matter how much you blink. The inescapable smell of campfire; proof that there can be too much of a good thing. The smoke that robs you of breath and blue sky. The smoke that brings the bugs out - every insect in the land emerges en masse. In daytime as well as night moths and gnats swarm the light of a gas station like a horde of confused locusts. Mosquitoes do the same but are only after the source of your breath. Every little thing with wings emerges to feast on the Earth's carcass. Driving through the haze will leave the front end of your car looking like a paintball field, minus the neon. Every year this happens and feels more apocalyptic - every year the anxiety grows that our children will catch as many summertime tans as youth in Beijing, or when they finally climb a mountain that called to them as children their reward will be a red disk in a deluge, instead of the depth and blue of the sky colliding with the sea interspersed by flickers of light catching more waves than a hairy van-lifer in the 60s. We would like to believe things were always like this. But we are young, not necessarily stupid - deep down we know the score, but feel powerless to change it. It is an unspoken truth. The best option is to savour while it lasts." - cockpit bluntsmoker; vignette sharethread; 4/22/2024