The first sound I hear waking up is the insistent cries of baby robins asking for food. At least, this is what I think is happening. Those robin babies are very loud and I think that the nest must be somewhere right outside my bedroom window.

The dawn looks gray. I think it’s fog, until I realize it’s not. Later I learn that the wind’s been blowing from the West, bringing the smog of wildfires from the Prairies. I am grieving for all those forests and houses and Treaty territories disappearing in the fire.

Things have been disappearing in my community too, little things. Back in spring, when the leaves were still tiny and neon green, they’ve cut an old tree on the street I take when I walk my kids to school. And a week or two ago I noticed that an old house I loved because of its white porch, blue shutters and a wild garden, was eased to the ground. The garden is now a construction site for a larger and more luxurious mansion.

When they were cutting that old tree, I stood in the middle of the street, determined to witness its final moments. Its life was longer than mine and more meaningful in many senses. It was a home, a shelter, it was the guardian of the soil, the keeper of seasons, the provider of oxygen. I wondered, what its fellow trees were feeling, the ones who grew next to it and those on the other side of the road, from where I was watching. Since the trees don’t move around, they must grow very attached to their companions. I touched the bark of one of the trees in a gesture of condolence. Even now, as I walk past the place where the tree used to grow, I feel its absence and I know the other trees feel it too.

Montreal smelled of smoke and worry. The Village smoked of weed, freedom and human misery. The smells mixed in an unpleasant way. I got a small red jasper stone as a gift. The note said it will ground me and help me get out of my head and feel more connected.

Tonight is prom night at the high school across the street. The kids’ cheers are loud, but not nearly as loud as the hungry cries of robin nestlings or the voices of my own children when they want my attention. I hope these kids will be ok,