Sara and Peach

[mallorys_camera]

I love this photo for a lot of reasons. It would have been taken in the early 1940s.

Her name was Sara; his was Charles. But he was called “Peach.”

Anyway, they died yesterday in the Napa fire, aged respectively 99 and 100.

They lived independently. But at that age, they just couldn’t mobilize.

Aerial photos of Napa make it seem like the whole town is up in flames.

Unreal.

I know that area so, so well.

In my late 20s and early 30s, I was a jock, and I used to go for 100-mile bike rides through Sonoma, through Napa. It wasn’t Wine Country back then; Highway 12 was just another back country road.

I know better than many that it’s all transience. That what you think is permanent is a fata morgana. That you can’t depend upon anything to last. That all you can do is be mindful and grateful while it’s there.

Still…

The Calistoga fire broke out along Petrified Forest Road, so I imagine Barbara’s forest is completely burned out, like she’d hired Beelzebub to do the landscaping, even if the old 19th century farmhouse she was struggling to turn into a B&B is still standing.

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I’ve been toiling for the Scut Factory, and simultaneously reading Bring Up the Bodies and listening to Wolf Hall. So, its all Thomas Cromwell all of the time!

I think I’m kind of in luv with Thomas Cromwell!

Not the historical Thomas Cromwell.

But Hilary Mantel’s reimagining of him.