My Summer as a shut in

My new-this-Summer neighbor is a mean mother effin' drunk.

Why else would someone build a fire pit directly across from their neighbor's living room window?
Why else would someone decide to build a fire only after seeing the neighbor's windows open?
Why else would someone build a fire if the only window open was to the neighbor's cat's enclosure?
Why else would someone decide to make the fire extra smoky, so the smoke goes in the windows?
Why else would someone leave the smoky fire unattended for hours?
Why else would someone, knowing the neighbor can't breathe the smoke, keep doing this?
Why else would someone ask the mask wearing neighbor where they got the mask?
Why else this?
Why else that?
Why else?

When my neighbors first moved in, they would invite me to sit by the fire with them.  I would decline, telling them I couldn't breathe the smoke.  I told them I was allergic to lodgepole pine smoke.  So, I would go in the house, and not open the windows on their side of my place.

Then fire season came to Montana.  Smokey the Bear signs showed the fire danger was "Extreme". That meant no more fires in the neighbor's fire pit.  No more lodgepole pine smoke coming in my place.

The air during fire season is thick and milky colored.  I couldn't open the windows.  I drove to and from town with my N95 mask on.  My neighbor would be outside, and see me in my mask.  Question me about my mask.  Question me about the smoke.

Smoky sunrise in Smith Valley 

A couple of days ago the Smokey the Bear sign read "Very High".  I came home, and my neighbor had a fire going.  He walked up and was talking to me. I couldn't understand a word he slurred.  It was one of those conversations where you don't want to agree with them, because you don't know what you are agreeing to.  You don't know what they are saying.  He continued to slur.  I stopped listening.  I went in my place to catch my breath, from the lodgepole pine smoke.

Every day since some of the fire ban was lifted, my neighbor has had a fire.  Wait, sometimes it's just a smoke.  All you see is smoke, no fire.  Wet lodgepole pine smoke. The kind that I can't breathe.  The kind that my air purifier can't keep up with, even with the windows and curtains closed.

Smoke from neighbor's fire/smoke pit

When I went out to feed the rabbits this morning, I could still smell the smoke from yesterday's fire.  I immediately needed my rescue inhaler.  I told my neighbor's wife, I need to go in and use my inhaler.  She laughed.  She kept talking. And talking. My neighbor came outside.  After I went inside he built a fire.  As I sit here, with my head throbbing, my sinuses stuffy, my air purifier going, I write.  I write for therapy.  I write because I like to.  I write to keep from crying.

I write so I don't open my window and ask my neighbor why he is such a mean mother effin' drunk!

  Beautiful. Troubled. Gone.

The beautiful woman in this photo was my cousin's  daughter.  

The other day, my cousin sent me a text message asking when he could call me that day.  He had something he wanted to talk to me about.  I sent him a text when I got home. The phone rang within seconds after I hit send.

My cousin was crying, and hard to understand.  I asked him if his Mom was okay.  He said yes.  Then he told me his daughter was gone.  He said that on March 1st, he and his wife came home to find her dead in a recliner in their living room. 

He said she didn't want a funeral.  She didn't want a memorial.  She didn't want......

I asked him if she had left a note.  He said yes.  He said in the note she apologized for being a shitty daughter and a shitty sister.  She was neither.

We talked for quite a while.  About the loss of his daughter.  About family.  About things.  About his sadness.  About how he and his wife would very rarely leave their daughter home alone.  About who knew of her passing. About how they were coping.  About whether or not they had anyone they could go to for help.

He asked me not to tell anyone.  I am sworn to secrecy.  I will honor his request.  I will honor the request of their daughter.  It's not easy.  It's not easy because in times of pain, sadness, sorrow, you want to reach out to others.  I can't do that.  So, I turn to my blog, my therapy.

Makes me wonder.  I wonder if his daughter felt invisible in life.  I wonder if the wishes of his daughter have made her invisible in death.  Gone. To be forgotten.  To be trouble(d) no more.

I have memories of her.  I remember when she shared a video of a time she and a friend of hers took a boom box to a busy area in Chicago and danced to Michael Jackson's "Thriller".  It was awesome.  I remember seeing photos she took while she was taking photography in college.  They were awesome.  I remember seeing photos taken of her while she was modeling.  They were awesome. 

I remember the day she was born.  Time spent with her when she was a child. And I wonder.  I wonder if she had ever been told how awesome she was.

Rest In Heaven. Rest free.  Be at peace.