while my friends and family in other climes were celebrating the first snows of the winter season (making me dreadfully homesick and nostalgic), winter manifested itself quite differently here in torrid LA, where last week, the temperatures reached 94 degrees.
and, as many of you are aware by now, while most places build a fire to keep warm from the cold, LA couldn't stop its fires from growing, as Santa Ana winds swept raging fires across southern California. while blissful, serene snowflakes fell on the rooftops in my hometown, i noticed a peculiar parallel on the streets of LA.
my parents (visiting me from KY) and i were walking around last weekend, and we kept noticing white specks floating down from the sky. i thought at first that it was pollen, the trees confused by the (even by LA standards) unseasonable warmth. but, the particles were too large to be pollen, and i noticed that when you touched it (or sat in it, as my mother did when she took a break to recline on a bench), it would appear white and cloudy on yr skin and clothes. and then, we started noticing it was in the air wherever we went, that it was collecting on the tree leaves, in the cracks of sidewalk, on our clothes, on the hoods of cars.
it was vaguely reminiscent of snow, but, horrified, i realized it was quite the opposite: what we were observing was, in fact, ashes blowing in from the fires on the mountains.
it was unsettling, to say the least. and as news coverage continued throughout the last week, with many more homes being lost and no sign of ceasing, it made me miss home all the more.
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