Smoke Takes A Toll
Wildfires Added To The Weirdness Of Transition
By Anya Nitczynski
For the GPHN
As much as I (and probably most of my peers) are dreading it, summer is coming to a close. To me, it feels like summer never really started. Something about a covid-stricken school year, maybe.
I barely got to go back to school before it was summer again. It also feels like summer isn’t coming to a proper close. And I have a theory. I think we can blame it on the recent smokiness of our city blowing in from faraway wildfires (dun dun duuuun). Not only is the awful air quality taking a toll on all of us and our lungs, it’s stunting our perception of seasons passing.
Even though the smoke has mostly (if not fully) cleared now, the impact it made isn’t. Not being able to see the sky the final couple of weeks of our summer break made for a rough transition from summer into the school year and fall. Normally we’d have clear skies slowly getting cloudier to prepare us for the transitions of this time of year. Plus, it’s a tough change to accept as is, even without smoke.
Overall though, I’ve seen it make little changes for everyone in my life. My grandma couldn’t go for her usual walks because of the air quality. Soccer practices were halted for my brother. And for me, I’ve just been a little sad about it. Not the biggest deal. I know. I got home from a trip to the East Coast to a starless night sky. I love being able to see the stars at night and all the smoke made it impossible. I also noticed the weirdness of daytime with a smoky sky. Even though it looked like the sky was cloudy and overcast, it was incredibly hot.
Overall I’ve (obviously) been insanely lucky to have not been impacted by the actual fires. Perhaps it’s nice to miss out on something to remind myself how much it means. Now that the smoke is clearing, I can count my lucky stars that we have clean air to breathe again and a (hopefully) beautiful fall ahead.
Anya Nitczynski is a freshman at Denver School of the Arts. Her column appears monthly in these pages.