Historically, September is one of my favorite months. While many see it as the final approach to the end of a year (and pumpkin pie spice everything), I tend to look at it as a beginning. Autumn is a season where I begin dreaming about the possibilities for the year ahead. It’s also a time when I am most inspired to write.
Like every month this year, however, September 2020 has a different feel to it. As I write this email, every window and door in my apartment has a damp towel tucked up against it and an extra covering hanging over the blinds in an attempt to keep the poisonous air resulting from countless fires from seeping into my apartment.
It’s been over a week since I’ve been able to spend any time outdoors and I’m constantly checking in with friends and family who are closer to the flames than I am. The conditions are a perfect match for the climax of the middle grade manuscript I’ve been working on (which includes a massive wildfire), but I honestly can’t bring myself to open that document right now.
Extreme wildfires have been a part of my life since the late 1990s. Prior to that, the fires always seemed smaller and more quickly contained. Including the one that threatened my elementary school—which was still under construction—in the late 1980s. I still remember watching from the safety of my living room window as flames crept across the mountain toward the construction site.
And I still remember getting into trouble later on for throwing my mother’s couch cushions out that same window and insisting my younger siblings (who were both under the age of seven) jump out for practice …just in case a fire ever got close to the house.
Moving forward
For as devastating as these fires are, past experience has taught me that we can and will rebuild from here. In time, the land will heal, and we may even discover plants that haven’t been spotted in years. Communities will come together instead of tearing at each other. And stories of selflessness, miracles, and reconciliation will inspire us to be better in the years to come.
If anything, this past year has reminded me just how much our life experiences inform and shape the stories that we write. Right now it’s natural for things to feel heavy and it’s understandable that we might not yet have the words to convey all the things that are weighing on our hearts. But just as timing and distance are said to be the key to comedy, so too are they the keys to clarity and inspiration.
When I look back a year from now, nearly two weeks will be missing from my journal. I won’t remember all the things that raced through my mind as I tracked down friends and loved ones. I won’t recall all the prayers I prayed as I waited for news that the flames had been stopped from progressing further into towns, neighborhoods, and rural communities. But I will remember the impressions that have been seared into my soul. I will remember the events that unfolded as we came out on the other side.
And somehow I know that some of those memories will work their way into the stories I write in the years to come. Because dire as my world looks outside my window today, I know this isn’t the end.
It’s only the beginning.