A Surly Girl's Guide to Life

The news has been on like background music for days. I can’t put my phone down or stop doom scrolling. I’m afraid of what I see and afraid of what I’m not seeing. My hometown is burning to the ground and I am grateful to be miles away and to know that my family is safe and outside the reach of the fires. I am thankful to not be dealing with the epic grief and loss of others from which I cannot look away. My grief and loss are purely an existential crisis.

There is a text thread amongst my childhood friends where we’re sharing updates and grief. We’ve been friends for close to 60 years since our elementary school days at St. Matthew’s Parish School (whose campus has taken a beating in the Palisades fire). One of my friends, who only recently lost her father, is trying to cope with the loss of her family home, the displacement of her mother, the loss of her memories, and cruelly, the loss of her beloved father’s ashes.

We were part of the last generation of feral children to freely roam the streets and canyons of Pacific Palisades. We’ve all moved away from our home town, and in recent years, haven’t really recognized the changes that time and gentrification had wrought on the once sleepy middle class Los Angeles suburb. Long gone is the Hot Dog Show, House of Lee, Hacienda Galvan, and the Bay Theatre. They were replaced in time by other businesses and now those too are gone, turned to rubble and ash. The library where I first borrowed “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret”, the playground where my nemesis Denise kicked me and put shoe prints on my Dittos jeans, and the store where I bought them are all smoldering.

While the Palisades hasn’t been my home in 20 years I can still conjure up vivid memories of the houses we lived in on Chautauqua and Kagawa Streets in the now decimated Alphabet Streets neighborhood. The house on Kagawa was a Spanish style 2 story home that had unique features like a dumb waiter and a milk door in the breakfast room. When my mother went through a health food phase, my sister Parrish and I would sneak out of my bedroom window and take all our pocket money to the Bay Pharmacy and spend it all on candy that we would cram in our mouths on the walk home. I loved that house. It was quirky. It was comfortable. It was home.

My friends and I would ride our bikes through the streets as there wasn’t a block in the neighborhood that didn’t have a friend to play with. We would hike through the canyons to get to the Will Rogers Ranch and explore the ranch house or play in the fields before wandering home at the end of the day. For some reason, the loss of the quaint ranch house hits me harder than I would have expected. In my memories it has always been a place bathed in the glow of a lazy summer day – warm and golden – and we would explore the house listening to the guided audio feeling like we were playing in a living doll house.

Growing up, there was always an understanding that living in California, while a privilege, came with a warning label. Earthquake preparedness was part of our upbringing. My grandmother had a whole section of the garage dedicated to earthquake supplies – mostly cans of refried beans and toilet paper. In my teens we lived in Malibu where fires always came with a sense of being a snow day. As kids, we were almost casual about it at times. We ran fire lines past deputies to get to our homes or friends’ places because we were young, arrogant, invincible, and stupid. For many it wasn’t until Woolsey that we truly grasped the devastation wildfires can bring.

I know several friends tonight who are living in homes that they have only just finished rebuilding in Malibu and are without power, gas or communications and suffering from “Here we fucking go again” PTSD. They have been where thousands of people are tonight. Devastated. Grieving. Resilient.

Earlier today we got photos of the loss of our friend’s home. He’s the brother we never had, really the 5th sister, and now another victim of unfathomable loss. Now, as I type, I’m listening to the news announce that there is yet another growing fire threatening my aunt’s home and she’s prepared her go bag and is waiting for the evacuation order that is likely to come.

I cannot begin to grasp the loss Angelenos are feeling tonight. And I don’t presume that my sense of loss or grief matters to anyone but me. I’m sure in the last 40 years other kids have lived in the house on Kagawa Street whose childhood memories are also covered in ash. And I’m sorry for them.