Pressure

Northern California was in deep.

During a multi-day heat wave setting all time state record temperatures, there were almost 11,000 lightning strikes in 72 hours. NoCal and Central Cal were under siege from no less than 370 known fires in late August of 2020. The Dolan fire in Big Sur consumed 4,000 acres and resulted in the evacuation of the world famous Esalen Institute, an ocean-side retreat center and a standard of peace literacy instruction. It appeared the fire was started by an arsonist, as were several of the hundreds of fires farther north. Because that’s what we needed right then, you betcha, little helpers for the apocalypse, acolytes of growing cults of the dead spreading across the world, desperately disenfranchised humans so devoid of hope, they’re driven to criminal behaviors just to assert some measure of control or power.

Not far away from Big Sur, just north of Santa Cruz, the CZU August Lightning Complex fire became the third largest fire in Californian history at that time and burned 340,000 acres. It razed Big Basin Redwoods State Park, home to the largest continuous strand of old growth coastal redwoods south of San Francisco. Hundreds of redwood giants were torched in what officials called an overnight firestorm, gutting most of the park. I’ve been there with my dogs more than once. Serenity doesn’t begin to describe that place. It was an unfathomable loss.

The smoke and ash from hundreds of plume clouds in NoCal reached Southern Cal. A thick haze lay over the entire state. The three largest fires almost doubled in size and the total number of fires around the state increased to 585 separate incidents, stemming from extravagant temperatures and dry lightning storms. 14,000 firefighters battled the blazes, 180,000 people were evacuated, 870 structures were destroyed, 6 people died, another 50 injured. Smoke and ash and extreme heat added to the aerosol health hazards posed by the pandemic, particularly for older folks and those susceptible to respiratory issues. The totality of the burn-scape surpassed an area larger than the state of Rhode Island, over one million acres.

All the while, Covid-19 stats in late August stood at 5 million Americans infected and over 170,000 dead. Here in California, I figured a breakdown of basic services would be all it would’ve taken to push us over the edge. Our communal psyche was stretched to maximum endurance. Caution fatigue was at a breaking point. We were in a constant state of crippling anxiety from consequences of disease, fire, and economic ruin. We became a guardian sisterhood and brotherhood of inferno and pestilence, twice damned from our own lack of forethought in properly dealing with both an epidemic and the pending threat of climate change.

One unexpected development or rather, lack of development, perhaps. Earlier that year, as you loyal readers might recall, I was concerned about Covid-19 decimating the ranks of our urban tent cities. In Los Angeles, that strangely didn’t appear to be the case. Shelters throughout the basin had outbreaks, but street encampments and Skid Row, not as much. The increase in street outreach and contact tracing helped, as did Project Roomkey’s temporary hotel housing initiative.

According to The Los Angeles Times, researchers and health officials posed possibilities that due to street life conditions, the homeless might have been hardier and potentially more resilient to bugs like coronaviruses in general. Another theory was the homeless were by nature already socially distanced from the rest of society and thus came into contact most often with their fellow members, as opposed to random encounters with passersby. The most plausible explanation seemed to be the fact they lived outdoors rather than indoors, and fresh air dispersed respiratory droplets in a quicker fashion than an indoor atmosphere. The irony our most vulnerable population was more invulnerable to Covid-19 because of their previously defined vulnerabilities shouldn’t be lost on anyone paying attention.

The universe, she has a funny twisted torque sometimes.

Meanwhile, 160 days passed since Breonna Taylor was killed in her home. Her mother, Tamika Palmer, while speaking to Phenomenal Media’s Mahogany L. Browne, said this about her daughter:  “Apply pressure,” she tells all her friends. She tells everybody, "Well, you want something, you want to go after it? Apply pressure." So that was our thing. Always, she would tell you to apply pressure. Don't let off the brakes.”

It was all so intense.

Everybody was so tired.

We needed a fucking break.

In California, we’d have taken two days of rain as eagerly as news of a viable vaccine. Pressure was being applied to each of us, from within and from around, via climate change, class warfare, and dread of mortality. To meet those challenges, as Breonna astutely noted, we must apply pressure, and within the apocalyptic changes manifesting in 2020, we had to apply an equal or greater amount of counter pressure to overcome all that despair.

Thank you, Breonna.

*Compiled from August 20, 2020