Only Ash Remains

I am from Northern California, specifically the San Francisco Bay Area. The area in which I grew up is notorious for forest fires, which have a heightened awareness now given the catastrophic fire season of 2020. I can think of countless times wherein I have been driving on the highway and pass by a disintegrated lot of land, the black ash starkly contrasting with surrounding fields of green. Specifically, I remember driving down to San Luis Obispo with my high school friends to help one of them move in near Cal Poly. Our conversation was interrupted when we all looked to our right to see rolling hills destroyed by fires from months prior. The mountainous green that typically meets blue sky was replaced by remnants of burnt wood, soot, and tired ash. We rolled down the windows to smell a burnt horizon, resemblant of a campfire gone awry. We all expressed disbelief over the pervasiveness of the fire season, and dismay around the fact that the land we love is rapidly burning away.I am reflecting on this memory in this moment, as 2020 has brought with it the decimation of trees and land I know so well. I can't help but mourn the ways the land raised me, and how its loss feels like losing a piece of myself. My only hope is that something beautiful will grow from what has burned.