I've been wanting to say something about this, but to be quite honest, this subject has been affecting me more strongly than I realised. I don't know if I'd go so far as to describe this as depression, but it has definitely put me down in the dumps.
As you have probably already learned from the news, the northern part of California has erupted with quite literally THOUSANDS of wildfires recently. Check it out for yourself HERE. The numbers are astounding when you see them.
What this map doesn't tell you, is the affect all of this smoke has had way down here.
You've all heard about California Sunsets, and for you East-Coasters, that part of the California mythology is pretty much true, and the wildfires have caused the colors of the setting sun to be even more spectacular.
But what has me so bummed, is the daytime sky. For the past week, to ten days, it's been distinctly ORANGE.
For the first day or two, it was a novelty, and actually a little exciting. The novelty of it honestly got the blood pumping and made every one perk up and go "Wow!"
But after a few days, we started to miss the comforting color of blue. The sensation of being under the orange haze made us all a little miserable, and more than a little wistful.
There are so many stalwart functions of our life that seem to never move, that when they inevitably do get shoved aside, if even for a short while, we are caused to feel unnerved to the point of depression and fear. Yes, there is a tinge of fear in people here. No matter how unfounded this emotion is, because the fires really are very very far away, and pose no direct threat to us here in Palo Alto, they have affected something that is resolute and fixxed in our lives. Every time we look up to the skies, all conversation stops and the mood changes.
Yesterday, for a short while, the winds shifted and an offshore breeze brought in cold ocean air that displaced the smoke saturated air from the northern part of the state, and returned our beloved blue to us, if only for a few hours. But then, slowly, the orange returned and stole our blue happiness from us. And even the sight of a spectacular California sunset could not replace the joy that was visited on us by a few hours of a reminder of what a sky is supposed to look like.
I've tried taking a few pictures of the sky, but nothing I've been able to capture communicates the subtle change in the color of the sky without seeming either exagerated or inconsequential.
Technically, the color of the daytime sky is supposed to be 5500K. The other day, I took a color-meter outside, pointed it at the sky and got a reading of 4500K! (G.E. Softwhite light bulbs typically are 3700K, and halogen lights are typically between 4700K and 4400K.)
When painters attempt to create a photorealistic painting, they take great pains to study how light reflects off of various surfaces and how the color of that reflected light might affect the color of nearby surfaces. They will study such small elements endlessly, taking notes and doing test drawings and color tests endlessly until they feel that they've addressed every conceivable detail, no matter how small, because if they don't, a viewer will someday look at that painting and say that something is wrong. The viewer may not be able to identify what it was exactly that made them feel that something was wrong, or out of place. But some subtle cue set off their senses and sets the mind to be alert that their is something amiss.
There is something amiss in the California sky.
