west by northwest (by midwest)

In Portland, Mt. Hood disappeared for days at a time inside the winter mist and fog.  I used to check every morning for its snow cap in the distance, secretly fearing it might have gone missing in the night – that the clouds would roll away to reveal blue sky and a flat horizon. Sometimes, I wanted the mountain to disappear – poof, like the Statue of Liberty on the David Copperfield special I witnessed wide-eyed (though never quite falling for the trick) as a kid – so I could stare off into the vanishing point.

Yesterday morning, I peeked through my blinds to check on the toxic soup that is Salt Lake City’s winter air.  To my surprise, I could see the rough edges of the mountains – clear as a map’s political boundaries. This meant the air was relatively clean.  The inversion had lifted.

Sure enough, the air quality website confirmed it: a green air day.  Moderate. No action required. It was safe to take a walk without a mask.  Safe to switch off the air filter, the hum of which serves as a constant reminder of the decaying-tooth-cap taste in the air outside.

Then I realized: The smog in Salt Lake City has driven me to the same morning ritual as the mist and fog of Portland.  Somehow, when the fog and mist were natural, this ritual felt more like a game – a match – between Mt. Hood and me.  It felt personal.  Here in Salt Lake City, I feel nothing for – or from – the mountains at all, even though their very presence makes the inversions possible.  They might be complicit in trapping the toxic fumes, but they seem to hold no grudge with me.

On the contrary, the disappearing mountains in SLC feel much closer in character to that Copperfield trick: mere mortals making mountains disappear, just by pumping out pollutants. Smog as a sleight of hand.  But I am skeptical of the trick every time.  The air clears, and voila! The mountains reappear.  We like to believe we brought them back, but they lurked in the smog all along.

Maybe, just maybe, I am starting to believe in this geography.  Maybe I am not really checking for the mountains anymore.