And after that, people were getting married again. Big weddings. Not the rushed elopements that happened in the hospital, where couples proved to each other that love still existed, that it could buoy them in some singular joy. Not those. People were jumping over brooms again. They were tying their hands together and walking in circles. Chairs were being lifted over everyone’s heads. And the brand-new toddlers of the world were carrying rings down the aisles.

Some of the practitioners at the spiritual center studied all the world’s old religions. They were scholars more than anything. The people of the town thought of them as sacred, but they weren’t often needed for anything in particular.

What rose up in place of religion was a revitalization of the spiritual and the unexplained. People wanted to believe there was an energy in the universe that connected everyone and everything, an energy that could articulate those connections, provide feedback, clarity, if one knew how to hold the conversation. And so there were rooms for reading tarot, tea leaves, the I Ching, numerology. One practitioner, Lucy, was well known throughout the town because she would hold séances.

It was all part of the renaissance they were in.

But Izabel didn’t like being in the spiritual center; it reminded her of how her old world had transformed into this new one. Waiting in the lobby, she opened her app, tapped on 2017 again. The year felt just out of reach. She scrolled through the headlines until she saw one about a fire.

A wildfire that has been burning through the Columbia River Gorge since Saturday afternoon is now dumping ash on Portland as it tears through more than 3,200 acres of fir trees and brush in one of the area’s most beloved natural areas.

Longtime residents of the city say this is the first time they could recall ash falling on Portland since the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980—a disturbing measure of the damage wrecked by record heat, parched forests and horseplay with fireworks . . .

. . . The fire started nearly two days ago when two teenage boys tossed fireworks from a cliff along Eagle Creek Trail. Dry brush at the bottom of the cliff ignited and the flames spread quickly, trapping more than 150 hikers on the trail. They were rescued Sunday morning.

On Monday afternoon, the winds in the gorge shifted—forcing further evacuations, shutting down the interstate and sending plumes of smoke into Portland.

Ash began falling across the city shortly before 5 pm.

The National Weather Service’s Portland station says to expect ash to keep falling throughout the day Tuesday. “It’s very light, so it doesn’t impact the overall air quality much,” the NWS writes on Twitter. “But the air is not great to start with, so staying inside is not a bad plan.”

Portland Public Schools has announced it will end the Tuesday school day two hours early because of heat and smoke.