The view from Santa Monica

and where do we go from here

Beaching in the Palisades on New Year’s Day - an annual tradition

I’ve started and stopped so many posts in the past week. First and foremost, we are lucky. We are safe. We are okay.

Our home didn’t burn down, our town didn’t burn down…but the town next door did. The town where all of Aurelia’s preschool classmates lived, where we spent the majority of her childhood playdates. The town where, in a parallel universe, we’re at the park with the little red firetruck playground RIGHT NOW, following our daughters’ dental appointment on a teacher planning day. The appointment that is still on our calendar. The town where, in that parallel universe, Erik is at work inside the office of his biggest client. The client whose office is now rubble.

The magical town where we spend every New Year’s Day on the beach as a cherished tradition. The magical town where we dreamed: someday, someday. Work harder. Someday.

We were five blocks away from the evacuation zone. We are lucky. Our patio remains full of toxic ash. We are safe. We obsessively watch air quality Zooms to balance safety with caution, to learn how much AQI matters when it may not measure asbestos or VOCs. We are okay.

You are probably worrying too much if you were not in a burn zone or adjacent to a burn zone, they say. If you could not see the burn zone, you are probably fine, they say. We could see the burn zone from our front door.

How much worrying are we allowed to do, I wonder as I write from my cozy bed, inside my bedroom overlooking the hills that burned friends’ houses to the ground. It’s not about me. How dare I worry or complain. It could be so much worse.

I’ve been coughing a lot. ‘MERV-13 filters’ is my new favorite phrase. My P-100 mask that looks like it’s ready for the apocalypse arrived this morning. I lived in New York during 9/11, I’ve lost my parents and my sibling, we made it through COVID — this is nothing. Life goes on.

It doesn’t really feel like nothing, though.

The view from our place. How close is too close? How far is far enough?

We have moved into “what comes next?”

I love this city so fucking much, with every fiber of my being. I’ve lived in ten states, four countries, countless world-class cities. I chose Los Angeles. LA gets a bad rap, but the outpouring of community and love and neighborliness and unity this week has been incredible. Thank you but no, I do not want to move back to Texas, to New Jersey, to Atlanta, to Miami - amazing places! For somebody else.

No, I do not want to trade wildfire for floods, for hurricanes, for tornadoes, for drought, for heat domes, for whatever other climate catastrophes are coming for us all — no matter where we live — and that are going to define the remainder of this century.

The single most dangerous thing I do every day is get into a car. A new future awaits us, for better or for worse, in T-minus 4 days. Time to buckle up.

A few weeks ago, I said my word for 2025 was unite, because we’re stronger together.

As we move into a future where at least part of our collective reality is repeated climate disasters, severe income inequality, AI-driven sector soft-collapse, housing instability/transience, and an aging boomer care crisis, I can’t stop thinking about how COMMUNITY is more important than ever.

Community, community, community.

Not just now. For the next decade. For the next twenty years. For our lifetimes.

You have probably seen countless GoFundMes. If you have space to fund two more, please, please consider these still underfunded friends and friends-of-friends.

What comes next? I have absolutely no idea. I know it’s going to be bumpy as shit. But for now, my community, my people, my family will tackle it from here — from the city I so love — together.