Every Moment Is Precious: Déjà Vu in L.A. Seven Years After the Thomas Fire

When I challenge myself to start a donation pile, I lament over how many items I can’t imagine parting with; but really, it takes me five minutes to separate out my true valuables. My olive-green electric guitar, a bank box of 20 journals dating back to 2012, and enough clothes to stave me over for a few days. These items keep me company as I remain evacuated from the Eaton fire.

I live in Pasadena, California, a five-minute drive from the start of the Eaton fire, which began at 6:30 pm on Tuesday night, January 7th. My mother and I were on the phone with my aunt over on the East Coast, Jane, relaying how massive the Palisades fire must be for ash to be falling on our doorstep. She softly told us that wasn’t the likely scenario.

I finally accepted what I’d been ignoring for the last hour: the cacophony of emergency vehicle sirens all heading towards the mountains. CalFire’s website helped us determine the worst. Without a word, I got up from my computer and began the task of gathering my aforementioned belongings. 

I’d have felt panic if déjà vu hadn’t gotten to me first. Immediately I was transported to the winter of 2017, to my mother gently waking me up in the orange morning light, saying, “It’s time to go, honey.” Pushing boxes of photographs into my mom’s convertible and chasing my brother’s cat from the neighbor’s yard into his carrier, as police officers ushered us out of Montecito. 

The subsequent mudslides on the night of January 8th, 2018, changed our community forever. Now, on its 7th year anniversary, I’m nervously updating my news feed just as I had been when I read the headline “Mudslide Kills Eight in Montecito,” and couldn’t get ahold of my brother for a day. 

As I’m writing this, on the afternoon of January 13th, the Eaton fire has eaten nearly 15,000 acres. The Palisades continue to burn, and more fires crop up around the San Fernando valley. While my house survives, the number of people I know whose homes simply don’t exist anymore grows daily.

When devastation has the potential to strike at any moment, as Californian’s have accepted with our flammable state, the fragility of life shows a little clearer under the surface of our daily lives. When that fragility threatens my peace, I return to a quote by Ajahn Chah, a Thai meditation master who told one of his pupils the following:

“You see this goblet? For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it. I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on a shelf and the wind knocks it over, or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”

The idea that everything is a cup waiting to be broken once paralyzed me. But as the inevitable events of life unfolded – fire and death – I grew to respect the ephemeral, to catch the “beautiful patterns” of the passing moments and let the pieces break as they may. 

To combat existential fear, I have a tattoo on my arm that reads: “Nothing is mine to keep,” a lyric written by Emily Sprague, the singer of the band Florist. It reminds me that even the moments of uncertainty and devastation cannot last forever. That there are still so many unbroken cups – my community, my family, my passions – that keep my hands warm and heart full.