California Wild Fires – Feminism and Religion

Oh, California, My California by Marie Cartier

Marie in the Pacific Palisades, circa 2000

This is my home—California…I moved here from New Hampshire, Boston, upstate New York, Ohio, Colorado…why did I move here? I kept moving West…I used to say I came as far as I could without falling into the ocean.

California. My wife is a native Californian. She says people come here for “the California promise.” And we’ll say it often –what is that? Oh yes, the California promise. The sunset drops into the ocean. A true orange ball of spreading colors into pinks, reds…and then it slips into the ocean.

I take my dog Zuma, named after a California beach…to Huntington Dog Beach where she can run two miles before she even has to turn around. A life “other dogs just dream about” says travel mags. I make a wish on every sunset I see that slides into the Pacific. Past the edge of my world into the deep ocean…A moon will rise. A waxing gibbous, a full, a waning gibbous, a new, a dark, a crescent…and I will walk under those, too, and make wishes, too.

Just South of Ventura by Sara Frykenberg

For those of us living in Southern California, it has been a tense week to say the least: flames ravaging up and down the coast, homes lost, thousands displaced, freeway and school closures, smoke thick in the air, and ash raining from the sky.

And the fires are still raging.

Whether or not one is directly impacted by the wildfires here in Ventura and Los Angeles County, you can’t walk through the grocery store, turn on the radio, or get a cup of coffee without engaging the fear and concern, or hearing about the devastation left behind. We are sharing a trauma, howbeit differently, and with different levels of need.

I have been lucky during the fires. I live just south of Ventura. My work is on the Getty side of the 405: it was threatened, but not in flames. I spent the week checking in with family and friends, offering my home, and breathing the toxic air. I also made dinner, picked my brother up from the airport, attended a baby shower, and graded papers. … This is a strange juxtaposition, and like many Californians, I have had a hard time processing what’s going on.

On Sunday afternoon, surrounded by the unnatural darkness of an ash filled sky while traveling down the 101 freeway, I wrote the following. This is my effort to make sense. And I offer it to you all here, in case this helps you make sense too. Continue reading “Just South of Ventura by Sara Frykenberg”