the desire to be dissolved

I sincerely love Southern California — it’s where I have called home for most of my life and a place that holds the best memories and spaces of people. I grew up in poverty, so having the capacity to ‘own’ a home was not simply a rite of passage in the communities my husband, myself, and our families grew up in; it often seemed impossible and intangible.

We grew up scrubbing our dirty clothes in used bath water, wandering the desert for rocks large enough to beat the laundry clean with, distracting liquor store cashiers so our siblings could take snacks that would hold us off until our next meal, rationing clothes and shoes, playing barefoot in dirt lots and unevenly paved roads, listening to arguments and gunshots, occupying small studio spaces, watching our parents try to disguise their struggle as they attempted to find ways to endure until the next day, distracting us as best as they could. Survival and endurance meant something different to us. Owning property, a small piece that could be a forever ‘home’, never seemed like it would be attainable as kids.

Last year we were able to secure our own slim sliver of the American Dream pie last fall in the Inland Empire. I am thankful that amidst one of the greatest, most painful losses our family shared last September, that my husband pushed us through all of the hoops to close on our home. We lost his father — one of the most selfless, patient, and hardworking persons I have ever met in this lifetime, and probably ever will in this one — but we were able to mourn in the initial stages of “house poor.” We’re no longer in that stage (for now), but it felt like a great accomplishment to have done something for ourselves in the Southern California real estate market that has only exploded within the last four years.

Resources are stretched thin around our region in Southern California. We watched the flames cover the mountainside in less than a minute, where we stood, listened, and watched as helicopters and planes alternated in collecting water to douse the fire on the hillside. We were covered in debris of ash and burnt vegetation as we listened to the sirens of passing emergency vehicles beginning to escort out the neighborhoods close to the mountainside. Homes have been lost in the three fires – the Line Fire, the Airport Fire, and the Bridge Fire. We are affected by the flames of the Airport Fire, while our families’ homes are impacted by the ash and smoke of the Bridge Fire. As someone who has grown up around the Inland Empire and within San Bernardino County, I am no stranger to fires; but it feels a little differently watching these happen as an adult, in real time, having to make judgments for my own family.

I can only imagine the pain that comes from losing what is often a sanctuary or place of escape for communities of people; we have the belongings in our vehicles that matter the most if our zone is put under evacuation warning. We only have three things, besides our fur babies, that we have deemed to be irreplaceable: a photograph that I took for a photography class project in high school of my childhood German Shepherd, Lucky, who passed away from cancer in my arms; Lucky’s vegan leather collar that sits in front of that photograph; and a 1.25-liter Pepsi bottle that my late father-in-law brought over for dinner right before he fell ill. We have so many “valuable” things in our home that I would be immensely devastated if I lost; but they can be replaced with another item that closely resembles it… I cannot retrieve the personal significance of those three items to our family.

I will return to “writing” at some point this week. My heart is heavy for the loss of homes, valuables, possessions, spaces of tangible value for those who are affected. I simply want to give this space to grieve for those who have lost this week, who are under threat of loss, who have felt loss, who will inevitably feel loss, and those who watch at the losses of others and remain incapable of avoiding such loss. I am grateful that the resources we have here in Southern California that are battling the unwieldy fires, and the lives and persons who have dedicated their lives and livelihood to these moments. I hold a moment in our space, our home, today for those who are trying to extinguish the fires and are trying to hold that line to avoid further destruction and loss.

I find mourning to be a necessary practice today; stay tuned for how this shapes my writing this week… it inevitably will. X, D.