Los Angeles Is Burning

Yesterday, as the gardener outside the window mowed the lawn, I caught the scent of freshly cut grass as it wafting up into my office window. I remember it so clearly because it's a smell that had been all but lost to me in my years in San Francisco. One grassless block after another; homes built right up to the sidewalk. Charming in their own right, but hardly green, nor particularly leafy.

As the day wore on, the smell of grass became  all but forgotten. In it's place, there now lingers the incredibly powerful smell of smoke. It's thick enough to taste. When I first became conscious of it, I thought, if only for an innocent moment, that it must be a fireplace.

Right. Except that it was ninety two degrees earlier today. Indeed, as I write this at well past ten in the evening, it's still over seventy outside. This wasn't a romantic and cozy fireplace. It was, and is, the smoldering smell of homes, landscapes and dreams, and perhaps even life itself going up in smoke.

On Thursday, Montecito, which is not only one of my favorite places on earth, but also home to a number of family members, burned through the night. Modest houses and mighty mansions alike, some that had stood for the better part of a century, were brought down to the same fiery playing field by indiscriminate wind-tossed embers.

Thankfully, my cousins are all safe and their properties managed to narrowly escape the brunt of the fire. But now, with the worst hopefully over for them, I can smell the northern fringe of Los Angeles, the very city I live in, burning. I'm far from the fire itself. I'm safe. But being so new to this city, I must say, it makes for a rather dramatic introduction.

It so happens I wrote a couple of songs some time ago that feel appropriate right about now. The first, Chimp In Space, was about getting a sense of our proper place in the natural order. The other, Today The Water Came, was about how disaster can bring about new and perhaps better beginnings.

Let's hope that for those that have recently lost so much, such a beginning lies ahead.