“People like me are fine. We always feel like we might die.”
My wife, Tamara, has a way with words. She’s not as morose as this quote makes her out to be, by the way. She suffers from fibromyalgia, one in a family of chronic illnesses that are often associated with stress, pain, and inflammation. She’s taken many steps to manage her symptoms, but a hum of anxiety is a constant. It’s the type of anxiety the rest of us felt when we woke up to a rust-colored sky.
Fires throughout California have pumped smoke and ash into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun and engulfing us in an apocalyptic glow. I have friends who have been evacuated or already lost their homes. The camping and recreational areas of my youth have been destroyed, but thanks to a marine layer of cleaner air lower to the ground, there is no scent of smoke in the air. Something about that absence makes everything feel even more ominous—as if I should expect to hear war drums in the distance.
Tamara won’t be deterred. We leave our home in Oakland to shop for succulents. Burning sky be damned—we’re going for a drive down the coast.
We arrive in Half Moon Bay and find the plant store shuttered. We’re not exactly surprised. Plan B: a quick walk through town before heading to the beach.
Half Moon Bay is the kind of cute beach town where you’d normally find a mix of young surfers intermingling with tourists in their SUVs and older locals doing some antique shopping. Today, however, the streets are almost empty. I decide to check in on my friend Joe at his brewpub, Sacrilege Brewery + Kitchen. The lights are dimmed, but he’s there, boiling a batch of wort. It’s steamy inside, so we stand out on the patio. The street lights are still on. It’s about 1 p.m.
Afterwards, we park down the road at the trailhead for Cowell Ranch Beach, which continues past a working farm to a wooden staircase down to the ocean. As we leave the parking lot, I dig my nail underneath a vinyl sticker that reads “White Pride World Wide” and pull it down, crumple it into a sticky ball, and dispose of it in the overflowing trash can nearby.
As we walk along this dirt path, I remind myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Tamara snaps photos alongside me, both of us still trying to find beauty in this world.
Words + Photoby Tim Decker