As a fire lookout on a local peak, I am thanked many times each season for doing what I know how to do: sit quietly, look, notice detail, pay attention, respond effectively. That’s the work. I appreciate you all paying your income taxes that support my federal job to turn in smokes and read books. I appreciate the miracle of years of such employment in my life. I also know it is a good thing when one’s work suits one’s true nature. I taught at a community college for a decade and observed it again and again: whenever a student found work suited to individual character, unexpected good happened. While “Thank you for your service” is always nice to hear in a workplace, when you love your job, doing your job is enough to make the day glow.
Still, I got a kick out of a compliment from a hiker last week. A visitor from North Carolina looked around at the peaks I pointed out that have other fire lookouts on them and then blurted, “You all are angels. You are what makes America great!” What fun to hear, I thought, but it felt a bit like the fellow needed a hero that day and felt happy to invent a few new ones.
It’s certainly human to want heroes. It’s not dumb at all when feeling overwhelmed or too small or clueless to wish that someone nearby has the Right Answer, Right Now. And people are storytellers; with their words and campfires and tweets and CNN live feed and favorite radio station turned up loud along the highway of life, people constantly try to make sense as they go. If calling me an angel helped a hiker that day, so be it. But it left me thoughtful.
Later that morning, a retired park service biologist who had hiked the five miles up the peak lingered past the usual questions about fires by lightning and accumulated rainfall. Finally he asked, “So what kind of season has it been? Really.” We’d taken turns with binoculars to look at the light shining in wet patches along the Little Colorado. It felt like there was room on the catwalk to say a true thing to a stranger. “It’s been a summer laced with sadness,” I said.
Nineteen deaths in Yarnell. I was on a day off, sitting at the bar in Uptown Billiards as the news traveled around town. I hugged a young man whose every pore exploded with shock and grief. Later the forest felt like it was holding its breath the day Prescott honored their fallen. At the lookout I could feel the stillness in green trucks and offices and towers as we listened to Joe Biden say sad things and true things, and for weeks beers were lifted as stories unfolded about that day, other days, all days in lifetimes built around meeting fire.
Thank you for keeping an eye on our woods, people tell me. I’m glad you are watching, others say.
I want to tell them it is everyone’s job to be the hero in their own life. It’s not for everyone to jump on an ambulance or carry a tool to a fireline or lead a march for a worthy cause, but one day you will find yourself needing to be the first responder to someone’s anguish, grief, dismay, anger or mishap. If you shape your life to give you compelling lessons about how to meet people with need, good for you. You are the angel-in-training who will be just the right first responder one day. Those of you who think life is about accumulating toys or showing off your glamour or preserving your oh-so-very-important time, you might need to look around and notice who supports safety, education and health for all of us. You can be sure there are heroes around you everywhere, every day. Heroes don’t want praise, they want the company of more heroes. There’s so much that needs doing, always.
It is the end of summer. Shadows hold more blue. Now nights gather the chill that turns a morning walk into a visit with winter. There will be more fires this fall, but soon another fire season will be tucked into a journal as thoughts turn to winter work elsewhere. Pay attention, this season said to me. Weave your insights from time alone into collaboration with community. Your time here is not endless.
