LA Fires - Part 2

Lately, I’ve wanted to write about our cruise to Chile last November. With happy memories and the heart to communicate lovely times, l wrote about the first half of the trip to Argentina when we returned at the end of the month.?

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Then the fires of hell attacked my glorious Los Angeles, and life changed drastically overnight. Literally overnight.? I can’t write about joyous days right now.

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Every Tuesday morning, my small group of women met for our weekly writing workshop -- an intimate cohort, a community of 5 or 6 women, all of us writing differently, but very personally, sharing secrets with each other in our essays or fiction.? I treasure these mornings, and appreciate deeply our writing coach, Ellen who is a singer, journalist, playwright and loving teacher.

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Then three weeks ago, Ellen said she had to end the class an hour early.? She lives in Altadena, a town about 15 miles from downtown, 35 miles from where I live on the beach in Marina del Rey.? She had heard about the fire reaching her part of town and was warned she had to quickly evacuate her home with her husband and three dogs.? Altadena was quickly ravaged by the fires. Ellen soon lost her home and almost all her belongings. She, Ken and the dogs moved in with gracious friends.? That has happened and continues to happen to so many people I know, mostly in the Pacific Palisades, an upscale area in the hills, near Malibu and the ocean.?

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A guy in my condo building lives part-time in his Palisades home; I saw him in our garage, and he told me, almost unable to speak, that his home was demolished.? It happened the day before and he was clearly in shock. Then I had a doctor’s appointment on that Thursday.? I was having an x-ray and the assistant who did it told me her childhood home on the beach in Malibu, where her sister and her kids lived, was gone.? Then, when I walked into the doctor’s office down the hall, he told me he had been evacuated and had no idea if his home was still standing. The world news was full of horrifying photos of the rubble, they were interviewing survivors who had nothing left, nothing.

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Almost everyone I know, no matter what part of LA they live in has been depressed, even if they are safe. We’re all obsessed with the news on tv, and the frequent reports that come in with a beep on our phones.? This is all we talk about or think about. Story after story, we never run out of news and horrifying videos. ?Once I recovered from the dread that the fires would reach us, as unlikely as it seemed, I was left with what is commonly known as Survivor’s Guilt.

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My friend Danielle, her husband Bert and their two dogs live in a beautiful home not far south of the Pacific Palisades where so much of the devastation has happened.? They are affluent as are all their neighbors, who have had a private security firm guarding their properties for several years.? This company sent guards immediately when the canyon across the way became ablaze. They used hoses and water from pools and kept all the homes on the street standing, losing only some shrubbery and trees.? The fire came within three homes nearby to them, which were destroyed.? Danielle and Bert’s was saved.? They have been living in a local hotel since then, as they can’t return home until the ash and toxic air are gone. She thinks it will be another three weeks.

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Danielle has felt both blessed and guilty.? “Why did we deserve this luck?” she asked me, a question that haunts? her every day. “Why not us?”? She has many friends who are homeless, and she can’t discuss it with them of course.? She also can’t drive up into the hills of the Palisades to see the destruction.

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Why not us, I ask myself?? Yes, it’s guilt, but I think it’s often Survivors Depression. It’s a phenomenon where so many people we know declare, “I can’t allow myself to be happy.”? I don’t feel particularly guilty, but I haven’t seen any of the shocking ruins in person.? Life appears in many ways precisely the same as it did before, especially where we live.? But if I catch myself laughing heartily or singing while I’m driving, or relishing my pup too much, I back off and just get quiet. Ususally, I feel low, spirits gloomy.? If I’m reading the papers, with their constant photos of the wreckage that resembles what I think of as a bomb attack in a war zone, I get even more depressed.

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I’ve had a low-level cough for a few weeks, since the smoke, ash, winds and air have been so toxic. My husband Tom has been sneezing more than I remember in all our decades of marriage. We’ve donated money to food banks, l’ve spent some time at a site at Santa Monica College helping them sort through contributions of clothes.? But so what??

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Over 15,000 LA citizens have lost their homes, almost all of their possessions, lifelong treasures. They have, for the most part, no place to live, or no place to work, to send their kids to school or to worship. Los Angeles is a catastrophe, and we have no realistic sense of how many years it will take to return to normal.? If ever.

Check out my website and blog for stories and more:?www.marciaseligson.com