US and Canada Shipping OnlyObservations Nowhere Near the Fireline
The fireline is a dangerous place, a zone that switches from offensive to defensive in a split-second. A space where sweat drips from brows, calloused hands scour the ground for any sense of remaining heat, and adrenaline and cortisol are obvious in body language. Orders are barked and heard and completed. Yet, it’s also a place where stories are shared, laughs are had. Bonds that transcend friendship, that verge more on family, sharing a common memory, sharing a common trauma, are formed. Or so I hear, and so I’ve learned.How can I know so much about the fireline? How can I describe the sensation of hauling a 60 pound pack up an incline, chainsaw on shoulder, no trail, just a wall of smoke and the feet of the person in front of you leading your way? Or the feeling of coming off the fireline, after an 18 hour shift, too delirious to want to eat but knowing you should. When you really could mistake the ground for your bed at home. I’ll tell you I haven’t experienced it myself firsthand, I am not a wildland firefighter. But I’ve learned from the lived experience of a wildland firefighter directly. So, while I might not be on a Type 1 crew or have flight experience, I have come to realize that I still hold an important role, one that requires long hours, an enormous amount of capacity, and an enormous amount of independence – the role of the partner of the wildland firefighter.
The off-season is great. My own job in research and academia is flexible, so we travel and spend time with family and friends, we adventure on day-hikes and enjoy the sun together. We make new memories, and we try to jam-pack those memories into busy days with full recognition that there exists a countdown in both of our heads. Tick, tick, tick.
“How many days left until the start of your season?”, I ask.
When I say the off-season is great, I mean most days are great. Some days, I feel this looming stress exuding out of him. I notice it in the little moments, when we’re waiting in line at the grocery store and I can tell he grows impatient with each second that passes. Tick, tick, tick. When someone cuts us in line, unknowingly, and I see his fingers twitch, his jaw tighten. Real life doesn’t have the same order as fire camp, and I know it’s infuriating. How can people live their life like this?? How can they actually think that this speed that we go at is acceptable?? Don’t they know that if they walked faster, in a straight line, everything would be orderly and would get the job done?! Tick, tick, tick. Or sometimes we’ll be in the same room, and I’ll ask a question at a normal volume, and he immediately answers, frustrated, “WHAT? Speak up!”. I’ve learned that I’ve had to elevate my voice volume every season, getting louder and louder, especially on his left side where he works the chainsaw.
Thinking back, I never wanted a long-distance relationship, but it wasn’t something that would scare me away. I had grown up in a culture of long-distance relationships, both of my parents as immigrants to this country. I was well-equipped with a fine-tuned toolbox of relationship-maintenance skills: daily or weekly phone calls, sending cards, Facetime sessions, holidays spent together. I thought, I know what long-distance means and I’ve done this before and what could be different? Our first season together was also a season strictly away from each other. It was six months. He tried to warn me, at least in what he had seen amongst his own crew. He cautioned me that even strong relationships end, that the distance and lack of communication are inherent, inescapable. That he wouldn’t be an exception. But he would still miss me, that he would still think of me everyday, that I would be what he thought of when he finally had a moment to think about anything other than the mission.
During the fire season, my own needs are not ones I often feel I can think about, or at least express about. Sometimes I feel like if I voice my needs, or if I express they’re not being met, what does that say about me? That I can’t go a few moments without thinking about myself, particularly in comparison to his experiences and his sacrifice that consumes the summer months. And that’s not to say I hear pushback on my expressions from my wildland firefighter. I can hear him on the phone, the first phone call we’ve had in 10 days, his voice is tired and scratchy. He has a cough he’s trying to hide. He asks me, “What’s going on in the real world? I want to know what’s going on in your world”. I can’t bear to tell him how alone I feel. How I had to tell another person that asked about him that actually I haven’t talked to him in days, that actually I don’t know really where he is. I would never tell him that showing up to another event, alone, without him just slowly gnaws at my insides, that it leaves a metallic taste in my mouth.
What kind of person would that make me, to compare the banalities of my life, my struggle, to even just a moment of his day?
He walks in the door, having finished the last roll of the season. I barely recognize him, he’s lost so much weight. Freckles spatter his cheeks that weren’t there before. I realize later on that those are really his pores filled with ash. His hands are still rough, still the same as I remember, just now the lines of his hands filled with more black ash, dark creases that remain for weeks. I feel so much relief to have him back in my life, the gnawing anxiety of wondering if he’s well, if he’s eating enough, if he’s hurt or even alive, finally drifting away. I know that the next six months together will have their own mundane challenges, in navigating how to adjust him back to the ‘real world’, listening to his ‘glory days’ stories of this past season, how to ease his aches and pains in a body so strong but still aging so rapidly. His contract may be done for the season, but I know mine continues year-round.