We’d crossed paths on the way here because we both flew through Vancouver.
His return flight was likely the same.
Mine wasn’t.
After I’d walked away from him by the creek, I’d gotten cleaned up and headed to bed.
Rather than sleep though, I’d been restless, needing to move on to the next thing. To get out of this little romantic bubble Kara’s wedding had created.
It wasn’t reality.
Danger was reality.
Work was reality.
I’d scrolled my phone and in no time found a posting about a wildfire that had broken out in Alberta. Sending a message to the local authority, they’d hired me first thing this morning.
So here I was, watching other people live their lives in an airport while I ran away from the possibility of making more of my own.
Getting back to work was the priority.
For financial reasons and emotional ones.
When I had been in Jasper’s arms it had been easy to let the wordmaybecreep in.
Maybe we could make it work.Maybeit was worth the risk.
But I wasn’t meant to stay in one place and no partner ever accepted that for long.
So here I was, gear bag by my feet, waiting to fly into another camp to help save homes from a raging wildfire.
It took two short flights and a bus ride to get to the camp I’d be working at until this fire was under control.
The sun was high when I arrived, not that I could see it. The smoke was too thick for the sun to get through. The air was thick with it and ash settled on my clothes.
I checked in with the incident commander, dropped my gear in my assigned tent, and wandered around the camp to get my bearings.
Dry grass crunched under my boots, kicking up dust. This level of dry was dangerous.
These camps were all pretty much the same. Tents, tarps, folding tables, and chairs.
Easy to put up, easy to take down.
The next day would be a long one, so I retired to my tent early and lay on my back staring at the nylon roof above me.
Fires didn’t sleep so camps didn’t either.
In the background people moved around, radios crackled from time to time, and a generator hummed
It was the sound of home even if the location of home changed all the time.
I rolled onto my side pulling the musty sleeping bag up to my chin. It was hot out and stuffy in the tent, but I needed something hugging my shoulders to settle.
Despite the sound of wind whipping the flap of my tent and howling through the trees I couldn’t focus on the present.
My mind wandered back to that creek over and over.
I’d met people who did this kind of work before, but none of that made him feel any less unique in my mind.
