This is Orange

to the twenty-third edition of Tiny True Stories! I’m so glad you’re here. This is a monthly newsletter where I share supershort true stories you can read in 5 minutes or less and little letters of recommendation. If you want to get right to that story, scroll on down past the picture!

I’m so tired y’all. My son wakes up at 5 every day no matter what we do. So many people close to me are having really difficult, painful times right now. It feels like a herculean effort to just get two children through the day, feed them 4-6 times, feed myself, and maybe do some work? Of course I chose this but whew is it kicking my ass right now.

That’s about all I’ve got the juice for. That’s what I tell my daughter when she’s asking me to do some sort of imaginary play with her at the end of the day and I just cannot, I say “I’m so sorry, but I don’t have any play juice left.” She then pretends to plug me in, and expects me to do it anyway.

My photos app reminded me that, five years ago exactly, the skies in the Bay Area were orange. It was a result of the wildfires, and though we were not close enough to be in any danger (other than poor air quality), it was terrifying. I’m glad I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.

This is Orange

Around 10:30 this morning the world is orange. The sky, the houses, the air. Inside, my new baby is trying to roll over. She wants to do it so badly she tries to do it in her crib instead of sleeping. She is hopeful. She is determined. She tried it yesterday, and tries again today. She is so close. She does not notice the orange.

This orange is not fire, but an atmospheric phenomenon, the result of wildfire ash high above the marine layer, scattering the sunlight into color. Though today doesn’t feel safe, the three massive Bay Area fires are actually more contained than they have been in weeks, and today the air smells much fresher.

And yet, things feel wrong, unreal. Cold during the hottest part of the year. A layer of ash blankets everything, even the insides of cars, somehow. The automatic streetlights have stayed on all day. When I go for a walk, it’s quiet, everything muffled when there should be a hum of cars, people, dogs, life. I never thought that disaster could be so silent. Because we have nothing else to compare disasters to, we say, “It feels like a movie.” It’s Dune. It’s Tatooine. The only thing we can find to hang onto is fiction.

But this is not fiction. I hold my daughter up to the window and say, “This is orange” and hate the lesson. I tell her the sun will be back and hope, hope it’s a true story.

(Thank you to River Teeth, who originally published this piece back in March of 2021!)

1. These (cheap!) earbuds, which is the only way I feel like I’m getting some reading done with audiobooks.

2. This chili crisp, which is not cheap, but is good enough to drink, and which we put on food that is child friendly (meatballs!) to make it feel more grownup for us.

3. This poem, “It’s the stage of grief where,” where my friend Emily Skaja writes about the grief of recurrent pregnancy loss. In this poem she imagines what it would be like to walk around with a loaf of bread daring anyone to tell her it isn’t a real baby.

Unless you’re the president or an ICE officer, may your bedsheets be as soft and cool as you want them and may your skies be clear while you sleep as long as you like,

Jill