I grew up and went to college in Flagstaff,
which is always on fire.
Arizona was always burning.
But that [? Museum ?] Fire is fairly
close to my parents' house.
And now the bigger danger, of course,
is the flooding that might occur.
So right now, their house is surrounded in sandbags.
I don't know.
I guess I have no real sentimental attachment
to that house, so whatever.
[LAUGHTER]
"The red off the far ridge, and eating dragons slow
coming down the valley, my mom's imagination over the phone,
a quarter mile of cars ahead.
No one has stopped on their way North or South
to capture hotshots turning the beast to smolder.
Somewhere out in the burn under dusk,
a rattler then unfurls, fast as brushfire,
and clinches against the inferno draft
that blocks entrance and escape.
For an instant, or minutes maybe, their unnatural warmth
is a comfort beneath the ablaze final day.
It's the shape I'm in.
I don't tell her that I will leave, days from this moment,
the high dry mountain we drive toward,
for the ashes of a different monster."
I recently ran the Narbona Pass Classic with my mom.
I ran 10K, and she ran the 5K, and at 71, on a whim,
got first place in her age group.
[LAUGHTER]
So she's a badass.
That's what you need to know about Nora Louis.
Former beauty queen.
Yeah.