Listen to this blog

I’m heading South for a few days. The frozen river in front of me has melted, the ducks are swimming again, but sub-freezing temperatures and ice and snow are returning tomorrow, and hunters are still out till the end of January.

I want to think in the sun, or at least in warmer weather for a few days, so I’ll leave the day before Martin Luther King’s birthday and the Inauguration. I’ll visit family and write from a place with sun and sea gulls and add to this blog there.

I would like to ship our snow and ice to Los Angeles where I lived for 11 years. I recognize with deep sadness and memory the places now destroyed by fire. The landscape is compared to the ruins in a war zone. This is accurate. An important distinction is that no enemy did this, and communities are helping each other and trying to save each other and the animals. This spirit of community and caring for one’s neighbors is prevailing.

From afar friends and neighbors can help with aid. (Some sites for donations are listed at the end of this blog.) Extending and expanding compassion wherever we live helps that spirit. Community is not partisan. Outreach is not what can you give me if I give to you, but an expression of shared humanity.

I’m sitting outside with freezing fingers tapping on my phone in the cold dawn of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It is time to go inside. I’ll finish this blog in warmer climes….

Clouds envelop the sky today on the warmer shores of Florida. It’s raining, but I’m no longer bundled in mittens and socks and boots. Ideas and words continue to flow so I can sit by the window, glimpse the ocean in the near distance and write all day. While I don’t see the sea gulls at the moment, I know they’ll return. A crow is hopping outside on the railing. I like crows; I’m reading and writing a bit about crows, but that is for another day. Back to you in March….

 

Some suggested sites for donations of aid and books to writers and libraries and schools in the Los Angeles fires:
PEN America Los Angeles Wildfire Emergency Response Grant
LA Fire Department Foundation
California Fire Foundation
Wildfire Recovery Fund – California Community Foundation
Dream Center
World Central Kitchen
Los Angeles Regional Food Bank
American Red Cross
Save the Children
Donate new and gently used books (Adult Fiction and Non-fiction, YA, Middle Grade Novels, Fantasy, Speculative, Sci-Fi, and Children’s picture books)
Contact @juliafierro or @LAWildfireBookDrive for details