Break time

When the CN&R’s staff sat down after our last deadline to prepare for this week’s paper, our annual year-in-review issue, we chatted briefly about what to put on the cover. Art Director Tina Flynn had a couple of creative ideas up her sleeve, including the one that ended up gracing that page. It’s pretty adorable, wouldn’t you say?

Those of us on the words side of the paper (read: the cynical scribes) had other ideas. One of them: a locomotive crashing. That was my idea to symbolize how 2018 was pretty much a train wreck. Indeed, it’s hard to look back at the year without thinking about the Camp Fire. Except for perhaps the most hermetic among us, the natural disaster is impossible to escape.

I really want to be a glass-half-full kind of gal, but I’m struggling to feel that way. Even with all of the heartwarming stories of generosity and selflessness that have followed the blaze, it’s difficult to get back to the place where I feel positive. Hell, I’m still wrapping my head around it all. And I’m not even directly affected. I live in Chico.

But the fire is on my mind every day, and I suspect it’s on pretty much everyone else’s, too, especially those who’ve lost their homes, places of employment and, tragically, friends and loved ones who perished in the firestorm. If you’re one of those people, you have my deepest condolences.

What I can tell you is that we’ll continue writing about the catastrophe. We care about the affected communities and want to help inform readers, give depth to the conversations and keep people engaged in the long recovery ahead. We’ve published seven issues since the Camp Fire and about 60 stories related to it. The articles are all archived on our website—now in a curated location. You can find them by clicking on the link that reads Camp Fire Reports under the banner of Local Stories.

Now for a little business We’re on an accelerated production cycle because of the back-to-back holidays. That means if you send in letters to the editor for the issue of Jan. 3, I’ll need them by the morning of Dec. 28. I’m planning on taking a couple of days off after Christmas, so keep that in mind if you contact me and don’t hear back.

My plan is to attempt to (mostly) steer clear of my office, email and voicemails for three full days. I may end up heading down to Second and Flume streets to tidy my space a bit. My office is never exactly neat—I’ve accumulated way too much paperwork working here over the past nearly dozen years.

As I warned a friend who dropped by last Friday, it looks like a bomb has gone off. Fortunately, the friend is a former journalist who was neither surprised nor repulsed by the messy environment. It’s typical in this line of work, but I’m sick of it, so it’s time for a major purge.

As for my days off, I’m looking forward to hanging out with my husband and snuggling on the couch with my kid, maybe staying in my pajamas for an entire day watching movies. That sounds just about right.

This is definitely the season for holding our loved ones tight.