The smoke that sat on this town all week came from fires burning a long way north — fires that are, for the people near them, not an inconvenience but an emergency. It costs Misquah nothing to keep that straight, so let us keep it straight: our week was hazy; theirs is on fire. Perspective is free, and this page recommends stocking up while supplies last.

That said, the week here was real too, in its smaller way. Air you can see is hard on the old, the young, and everyone whose chest keeps its own weather. Plans moved indoors, or didn't, or should have. And there is a particular strain in a stretch of days when the sensible thing is to do less, in a town whose whole instinct in a pinch is to do more. Misquah is good at bringing a casserole. It is less practiced at closing a window and sitting still, which was, for once, the assignment.

So here is what this page has to offer, which is not a position but a list. Check on your neighbors, particularly the ones who told you not to. A phone call through a closed window still counts. Believe the advisory even when the sky looks merely dramatic; lungs are not persuaded by aesthetics. Thank the people who spent the week working outdoors anyway because the corn, the mail, and the county do not pause. And if you find yourself at the landing at sundown, admiring what the smoke does to the light — this page did — you are permitted the sunset. Guilt is not a filter. Just remember what the color costs somewhere else, and hold both thoughts. A town that can hold both thoughts is most of what a town is for.

The wind is supposed to turn Wednesday. When it does, open the windows, air the place out, and go make up the porch-sitting you were owed. The sky is borrowed this week. It is not, we are assured, a permanent arrangement.