There Is Sadness Falling From The Sky Like Ash

There is sadness in the air. It sits like smoke, unable to leave this quiet valley because no strong winds blow through our town. It is good, this lack of winds because without strong winds there is less fire. But without strong winds there is this smoke.
 
And this sadness.
 
This sadness dances around the possibility and opportunity we see in front of us. We feel it here. Nestled in against ourselves and our town. We feel it and so we cover it with words of affirmation and support for each other and ourselves.
 
We look to the future and plan how we will rebuild and notice how we connect and figure out what we can take from this ash and smoke to make a better place than the one we had before.
 
But still there is this sadness.
 
It settles in our eyes and rides along our breath. I hear it in the rhythm of my step along the pavement as I walk in town. I see it in the eyes of the people around me. Both those that lost a great deal and those that lost just a bit in this it-is-all-relative-to-where-we-were-and-where-we-are-going and there is no quantitative way to measure that pain and the grief and really how do we comprehend what really happened in this valley.
 
And so we sit in it.
 
And so I sit in it.
 
The sadness. And the discomfort of it. I cry and I do not know half the time why the tears are there. And I go on social media even though I am overwhelmed by social media. And I give $50 to GoFundMe pages and YouCaring pages for people that I know and people that I do not know, too.
 
And I walk my dog and worry that the smoke that I am keeping from my lungs with a mask of white with yellow bands does not fit her face so she is breathing in this air of smoke.
 
And breathing in this sadness, too. Falling from the sky like ash.