When the World is Burning

how do we make art?

The mountains where I live are currently ablaze. I’m sitting here wondering what to write about when so many trees and animals are being lost. It’s hard to think that anything is more important than that.

Photo from fires in March 2025- New fires ignited last week

As I write, helicopters are flying overhead with water pouches ready to spread water across the blazing mountains in the hope to liquidate the fires. I have learnt that there is an art in spreading water via helicopter. I’ve learnt the term liquidate in relation to fire control. Every day we hear updates, x percent contained, x percent liquidated. I have discovered that you have to create brechas, gaps to stop the fire spreading. Every hour or so there are lists sent out via Whatsapp groups of essentials needed by the brigades (everything from water to machetes). I have once again seen how community comes together here in Mexico. I have once again seen the complexity behind these disasters, connections and divisions, people looking for where to place blame, fear and panic.

Beyond doing what I can to help support the volunteer brigades with food prep and donations of electrolytes etc, I feel helpless. I don’t know the mountains well enough yet nor do I have sufficient fire knowledge to help on the front line.

So I stay here at home, luckily ensconced away from the contaminated air, the writer at her keyboard, searching for how this skill she has helps the world in any way, wondering if there will even be a world to write for.

Rationally, I know the importance of art in these moments. I know first hand how often I have turned to words in moments of despair, grief, uncertainty and how they have brought me back to life, words like defibrillators on ailing hearts.

And yet sometimes it’s hard to believe that these stories that I write make any difference to these mountains that I love so. I wonder often if they give me more than I can ever give them. I ask if that is fair.

And then, I turn to the poets, because it is always the poets who deliver me back to what’s true and I read the words of Nikita Gil.

nikita_gill

A post shared by @nikita_gill

And I remember that art means something, words mean something, even when everything is burning.

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Teas and Tales

Photo by Katrin Hauf on Unsplash

Creative community is important, now more than ever. These Teas and Tales gatherings are a nourishing balm. I hope you will join us to sip tea and write together.

When: Sunday, May 4th at 11 am PDT/ 1 pm CST/ 2 pm EST/ 7 pm BST

Cost: The suggested cost for Teas and Tales is $12 USD, but please feel free to pay what you can, money needn’t be a barrier for sharing this space.

May’s tea to accompany us in our writing will be Jasmine 🍃

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A rough little something I wrote to deal with all the feelings… I read it here and it is written below.

El Vocabulario of Disasters

It was early in my time in Mexico that I learnt the term centro de acopio, collection center.

Take cobijas for the cold, food en lata for nuestros hermanos in need. Víveres básicos, dispensas. The translations confusing, I followed by example.

It was years later, I would learn that rubble was escombros and grietas were cracks. They would go from unknown by me to well used, falling often from my lips alongside temblor, terremoto, sismo, interchanging words for the earth shaking beneath us.

I would, like everyone else, be in shock that the simulacro happened to commemorate 1985, just before we were shaken by the real thing.

I would learn to prepare for replicas and search out crispy bolillos for shock and take in memes for light relief.

I would learn that equis marked the spot, the x shaped cracks denoting a death sentence for a building.

I would hear of damnificados, living in makeshift tents, under lonas. Lonas, so many lonas.

I packed my mochila de emergencia, keeping it by the door and still live through every mes de patria with bated breath. Years on, I struggle to hear the droning siren of the alerta sísmica, without experiencing deep, embodied susto.

Contingencia would start to flow off my tongue. Then cubrebocas, face masks called mouth covers, the name some said caused confusion as they needed also to cover the naríz, then pandemia, cuarentena, aplanar la curva, flatten the curve.

Later when the ocean called me, I would learn the difference between a tormenta tropical and a huracán. I would learn to watch the oleaje, judge the incoming storm by the waves. Here the equis was useful, cinta on the window to help the glass hold against the ciclón.

Now, I learn of brechas, to stop fires. Liquidación, which is different from contención. I hear calls for paliacates to help shield against the smoke, arañas that aren’t spiders but rakes. I hear of hojarasca, so onomatopoeic, it’s translation leaf litter, the perfect alliteration.

But in all of this I hear, hermanos, gente, comunidad, familia, voluntarios, brigadistas, ayuda.

I hear risas always, I hear esperanza siempre.

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Thanks for being here….