I See Fire

Wednesday January 8

I took a doxylamine succinate last night at 10;30 and some Propanolol. Don’t seem to be able to sleep at the moment without those.

I’m okay.

I’m not okay.

My mother was my home, and she burned up.

Pacific Palisades was my hometown, and it burned up.

All of LA is burning up.

I’ve taken a Lyrica already and been smoking weed since I got up. Numb numb numbing out. Jessi (19^th street) evacuated. That means Sam surely has. Jessi is my friend. Sam is my friend and was my mom’s friend. He’s the last of her colleagues I am still close with (or know at all). I’m supposed to talk to him today. Don’t know if that will happen. No point calling him at home, of course. He’s going to be frustrated about spending so much money on his house recently. We both love the Santa Anas. The feeling of purpose and peace they stir. How they feel. Or did love, until this fire. Do we still love those winds? Can you stop loving something just because it does you harm?

I hope they saved the Lake Shrine. That’s my favorite place in the whole world.

Of course they probably didn’t.

Of course a lot of people certainly stayed behind, or didn’t get out.

It tears you open, to lose a love to fire. To lose your home. I have been through it before, with my mother, in the Palisades, even. I cannot say in words how devastating this giant furious taking is.

I love The Palisades. I dream of and on those streets. When my mother died, I put myself back together nightly on specific sections of those neighborhoods: the park, the village school playground, the route from there to Osco (later SavOn, later CVS), a booth at House of Lee (later Pearl Dragon), the sidewalk outside the YMCA (flying dreams here), the waiting room at 860 Via de la Paz floor G my mother’s office, the window from my mother’s office looking down on Pali Elementary with a huge sign in her window saying hello and my name and I love you, the Bay Pharmacy packing room I had to tiptoe through to reach the bathroom, the back way into Mort’s (later the movie theater), oleander on Bashford, iceplant on Monument, dandelions on Swarthmore, the join of Swarthmore and Sunset, the Water Power building cat a corner to Gelson’s, GELSON’S our market. My mother’s later office. Ronny’s. Topanga. Pharmacopia.

All my early memories are in The Village. All my growths out of fear (elevators, dogs, too much fat, men). All those walks. All those books I read walking to and from my house on Iliff Street.

Nothing to do but wait and see if he’s okay. Nothing to do but wait till four. Nothing to do but wait.

Inertia. Anguish.

Pele’s been after me since the day we met.

Wonder what Sam will think of the Santa Anas now.

Update: He’s been in touch. He says they’re still romantic if you’re Raymond Chandler.

Update: So far The Lake Shrine is mostly ok <3