As the Southland burns it is blanketed in ash, pouring it over itself in dismay at the pain and loss of its children.

500 homes already... I just spent the whole evening trying to get back into Southern California and had to try multiple routes, eventually winding my way through flame ringed highways back to the smoky land I live in. And it is a good land, and a compassionate land, filled with care to the brim for those many many people who are suffering the losses of loved ones and the pain of losing everything that you call your own. The radio is filled with such messages. Everybody at least knows someone who's lost their homes.

And so for once, coming back home from the Wild was not preoccupied with distate or discomfort, but with intense concern for the megapolis I live in. Calling loved ones for news, leaning into the radio to catch the scattered static of a desert radio station, waiting in long lines of cars trying to find a way home, driving between tongues of angry orange flames leaping skyward: home became something to be sought after and desired.