There's something about disaster that begs for a sign.  It's not just that we need to be assured that things are getting better, but also that it's okay to step out of grief (even if you must return later).  Noah got a rainbow.  Napa gets hot air balloons.

They may not be most cities' indicator of "just fine, thanks"- but they have  become my new measuring stick.  Defiantly bright, bulbous hot air balloons that hang contentedly in the morning skyline.   They first caught my wonder in my inaugural crush season over a decade ago.  Fresh out of Houston, I remember driving from Napa to Oakville my first week of work, flabbergasted that every single morning there were hot air balloons hovering over my commute through the vineyards.  The response from the cellar crew with whom I worked?  "Oh, those."  That's how Napa-normal they are.  Fall is when Napa's hills and valleys show off their color, and a handful of local hot air balloon companies offer tourists an incomparable birds-eye-view.  Fortunately, I have two kids at home who still treat every single balloon with the same reverence they'd conjure if a pegasus trotted across our driveway.  This week, I feel the same way my kids do.

For weeks, the balloons didn't fly.   It wasn't just the fires; it was the smoke.  Likewise, my children and I didn't leave town because our house was on fire; we left because we couldn't breathe.  In your throat, it felt like a dry paper bag.  In your heart, wet cement.  I noticed it most when I gathered with my colleagues the day before we thought school would start again.  Sixty grown men and women, all with bloodshot eyes, some still wearing masks, everyone willing to cry just a little.  Some had been stuck inside and- like a ferret in a shoebox- were desperate to get out and do something real.  Others had been forced from their houses.  Some helped family sort through what wasn't left of their homes.

As broken as some of my teaching colleagues were, they were doubly ready to be part of the healing.  We were ready, even in our bloodshot state, to be the city's wave of second responders.  If we, with our adult understandings and resources for coping, could be taken so aback, how much more so must our students be?  Our mercurial pre-teens, who had only sensational news and snapchat while their surroundings charred to a crisp? 

As it turned out, we didn't start school on the ninth day after the fires.  Unpredictable air quality levels kept school doors closed for two whole weeks.  (What's worse than red in an air quality meter?  Purple!  It's a thing.)  And our students, by the time they returned, only needed what the rest of us needed: each other.  They just needed to tell stories, to flirt, to push dress code.  And despite what we know about teenagers, they needed the chance to say thanks, too.

The thanks, after the chimney smell starts the clear, is what we are left clutching most tightly.  Because, really, when mere mortals stand between your town and a two hundred-foot wall of flame, what else can you say?  And how many ways can you say it? 

Fence lines of public schools around Napa are plastered with giant Thank You signs painted by students.  On my daily drive through Carneros, I'm still greeted by a hand-painted eight-foot piece of plywood on the edge of the fire line that reads Thank you firefighters! in dripping red letters.  Several of my friends reported trying to buy meals for first responders they encountered in restaurants, only to learn that another neighbor had already picked up the tab.  (And a Napa meal ain't cheap!) 

One of the moments I hope my children remember best from the past few weeks is a dusty yellow fire truck being hailed as if it were Beyonce come to town.   Horns honked, hands waved, and voices from half a dozen car shouted their gratitude.   Likewise, I missed a highway exit at one point because my own children were so excitedly shouting, "Gracias, bomberos!" to the long line of Oregon fire trucks we passed.  The gratitude is what makes me swell.

It's not just the official heroes, either.  It's the wine production teams and vineyard crews who worked like they were the only people left in the world, because even after their families had fled the smoke, they knew that if the grapes weren't picked, families winery-wide would feel the effects for years.  It's the leaders of businesses who insisted their employees take care of family first, no matter what.  It's the folks who stuck around and made meals for everybody else, so the work could get done and at least stomachs could be at ease.  It's maintenance crews who made hallways and playgrounds safe for little bodies again.  Do we need to look no further than one another, to see the Divine?  Damn right.

These days, you can mark your calendar by the benefit dinners and pop-up wine event fundraisers around the valley, from here to next year.  Eating and drinking and coming together is how we've always done in wine country.  Now, we're opening our arms wider and squeezing even harder because of recent events.  We really, really mean it.  We're grateful for the help.  We're grateful for each other.  And I'm grateful for the fires still burning inside giant yellow balloons, keeping them afloat on the horizon- a sign that we're gonna be okay.