Smog

The atmosphere is oppressive this time of year. Burning in the mountains causes smoke to float down and settle into the valley. Chiang Mai is covered in an horrid layer of smog. I can see it even as I look out across my yard. The sun seems to give off a reddish color of light as it struggles to shine through the dirty air. At sun rise and sun set, this is especially evident.

The dirtiness pervades even the house. The only thing to do is keep a clean house and closed curtains. I like to think that helps. I could still dust everyday and still find more dust. Since the yard is drying out and grass brown, I find dry grass and dirt comes into the house much more quickly on our feet. So the floors get gritty faster.   

Even my nose knows it’s dirty out there. Dru and I both struggle with allergic headaches right now. He gets it worse than I, but he’s learned to cope better than in the first years. It’s gotten to the point that at this time of year, he just grits his teeth and bears it. We’re both thankful for Tylenol and Ibuprofen.  

It’s hot. The laundry dries fast and I’m thankful because l don’t like to leave it out in the smog to dry for long.

Going out into the yard is a little bitter right now. Our land lord came by the other day and then a few days later, we’re missing another big tree. The one behind the spirit house. The one exactly like it on the other side of the mango tree has been chopped down to much shorter, about the size of the mango tree. So we’re short on shade. The grass is brown, as I said before.

Some of my flowers show signs of dying in this weather, but others are thriving. I’m going to keep working at this whole flowers thing until I learn what works best in what weather and which flowers I’m not capable of handling because I’m me, and flowers don’t generally get along with me anyway.

However, I’m surprised at how I have adjusted to this kind of weather. I was dreading hot season, then I realized that my body has acclimated and it’s silly to dread it when it won’t be as bad as I thought it would be. The worst is yet to come. We’ll see how I’m feeling in a month.

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