Through The Fire

A dispatch from The City of Angels.

AP Photo/Ethan Swope

It’s Wednesday, January 8, and I’m sitting in my living room looking out the window at the thick cloud of smoke hanging over all of central Los Angeles. The sun, barely visible behind the gray skies, looks almost angry as it beams a burnt orange-reddish color into my apartment instead of the welcoming magic hour glow I look forward to around this time every day.

Los Angeles is such a deceptive city. Its perfect weather, gorgeous ocean views, and rhythmic waves can lull you into a sense of feeling at peace in a city that’s actually fertile for multiple kinds of natural disasters.

Joan Didion is one of many California natives to have warned us as much.

“Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The winds show us how close to the edge we are.”

– Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)

We have been reminded of that this week. How out of nowhere a string of calm sunny days can bring forth hard Santa Ana winds that can spark a wildfire, that can spark another, and another, and another. And how quickly you can go from watching people evacuating their burning homes on TV, to your phone ringing because now some of those people are loved ones who need you, to an emergency alert going off warning you to be prepared in case you’re next, to having to flee your home not knowing if you’re ever going to see it again.

When I woke up this morning you could not have told me that I’d be packing a go-bag at 6pm. But by that time this unprecedented fire had found its way into the Hollywood Hills – and a friend who lived only 15 minutes away from me was suddenly on her way to stay at my apartment because her neighborhood had to evacuate – anything felt possible. Anything except for sleep that is. Had to stay alert in case Plan B turned into Plan C. Still as nerve-wracking and disorienting as the uncertainty has felt for me, it pales in comparison to the tragedies happening around me. I, at least, still have my bed to not sleep in. But hundreds of thousands of people surrounding this city that I’ve grown to love greatly, have found themselves suddenly unable to say the same.

Up above me in Altadena, a historic haven formed when redlining in the 1960’s made it one of the few places Black people could purchase houses, people have lost homes that have been in their families for generations. There, the houses are more than just expensive structures, they’re hard earned inheritances that hold lifetimes of memories, sanctuaries for countless traditions, embodiments of familial care and sacrifice filled with priceless keepsakes that can never be recovered. Even from the outside, watching that kind of legacy be destroyed evokes a special, almost ancestral, type of pain.

West of me the Palisades fire, which at about 23,000 acres and counting, has burned more land than the size of Manhattan, and destroyed much of the Pacific Palisades and Malibu. Despite being the largest of the fires, it has unfortunately become a litmus test for empathy due to its very wealthy, celebrity heavy homeowner population, and incorrect assumptions that every single person who lost their home there has the money to easily buy a new one elsewhere. But I refuse to let it be lost on me how not even the rich and famous are immune to the unpredictability of life. Some of them went from being on TV at the Golden Globes, celebrating being nominated for an award they worked their whole lives for, to being on TV because their home and everything they own are now in ashes, all within the same week. From living the dream to being smack dab in the middle of a nightmare. And there’s no amount of money you can throw at a fire to convince it not to burn down your house. In that shared truth we are all the same.

I keep finding myself wanting to feel like it's not normal to be surrounded by this much fire, this much destruction, this much grief… but how many unprecedented times must occur before we admit that these are just the times? Sometimes I feel like I haven’t felt safe since I watched those planes crash into The World Trade towers in 6th grade. Or was it since I watched the parents of Sandy Hook Elementary students stand outside their school waiting to find out if their children were gunned down in class? Since Breonna Taylor was killed in her home? Since Trump won the first time? The second? The pandemic? The bodies of dead babies piling up in Gaza? I don’t know how long humans were played with the fire before it finally caught and began to burn us. Feels like an impossible riddle to solve. I just know that I. Am. Tired. Because if we’re being honest we’ve been surrounded by fire long before this week, and it goes way beyond this beautiful city.

So how do we keep from giving up hope? Well, the older I get the more I notice this peculiar thing that happens when things seem darker than ever and I’m ready to give up on humanity – God moves. Genuine thoughts and prayers turn into action, neighbors stop being strangers and people begin to help one another rebuild. In the case of this week and the fires, Los Angeles has proven itself to truly be The City of Angels; donation drives are in full swing, companies that usually overcharge are giving away free temporary housing to victims, therapists are offering pro-bono sessions, and firefighters are risking their lives trying to conquer these incessant blazes and protect the city. And as we come together and remind the world that community is the most powerful tool there is, a different kind of fire is catching and spreading. People from all over are donating what they can to keep our efforts going strong. That is what gives me hope as we wade deeper into the unprecedented era.

Altadena’s own Octavia E. Butler, whose burial plot has sadly been damaged by the Eaton Fire, said it best in an essay in Essence Magazine.

“There is no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers – at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.”

— Octavia E. Butler, A Few Rules For Predicting the Future (2000)

I’m determined to keep choosing to be. Here on my new substack Sincerely, Sylvia and beyond. I hope you’ll join me.

Please consider donating to victims of the LA Fires if you can:

• Displaced Black Families GoFundMe Links — To submit a campaign for someone affected by the Eaton Fire in Pasadena & Altadena email CommunityAidDena@gmail.com

• More Family Fundraising Links

• Altadena Girls Fire Recovery

• Mutual Aid LA Network Fundraiser

Sincerely, Sylvia

---