Twenty minutes until I zoom with Carl to talk about my attitude problem. Anxiety pretzels up my gut, so I slip on crocs, roll up my pj pants, exit to the backyard. Mid-April feels like July as I cross the lawn, releasing dandelion fluff with each step. Humidity mists my upper lip, chafes between my overripe thighs.

The patio, the deck, my neighbor Bernie’s old Camaro on cinder blocks are dusted with an apocalypse of pollen. I sneeze once, twice, a third itching in my nose while I grab the bug spray from the table next to the chartreuse-flecked chaise lounge.

The ticks are out in force already, so I squirt my ankles with Off. Don’t want to be a maniac when I talk to Carl. Don’t want lyme disease. I just need ten minutes under trees to remember that I’m blessed to work from home, over-privileged in general.

There weren’t all these ticks and weird diseases when I was a kid. My niece was bitten by a Lone Star Tick and is allergic to meat and dairy now. Feels like a MAGA conspiracy theory– ticks lab-created by vegan terrorists to bring down the great state of Texas, land of guns, barbecue and trucks so big they bring you closer to Jesus.

When I approach the back gate, the hot breeze smells like a bonfire with marshmallows and ghost stories, but it’s a forest fire down in the Pine Barrens. My heart ratatats like an overlong jazz drum solo as I crunch over dead leaves in woods about as wide as your average strip mall. Being under the trees is usually enough to bring some peace, but the constant sirens of doom out here are worse than the thought of Carl.

Out on the highway beyond the woods, trucks thunder deeper into New Jersey. You used to be able to hike back to the creek. Now, trees felled by the last couple of hurricanes make the way too tangled. So I stand, pant next to the rusted chassis of one Bernie’ abandoned projects, the thought that all of this will be underwater in a hundred years oddly comforting.