What we do in times like these
A loose collection of thoughts
The LA wildfires are far from us geographically, but, like everyone we know, have destroyed the homes of friends and acquaintances at so many degrees of separation. Some of the relationships are para-social, but still sting. I can’t stop looking at that beautiful kitchen that’s now all gone.
During the days when the fire was actively raging, I thought about how this collective and horrific loss was happening just before the new administration would be sworn in. Tragedy upon tragedy, not entirely unrelated, with an understanding that there’s an unknowable degree to which things will get worse.
“You can’t prepare for the worst-case scenario when the scenario keeps getting rapidly worse,” writes Elisa Gabbert, the poet and essayist.
I thought about all the parents I know who work so hard to protect their kids in the strange cocoon that is childhood. They shield them from too much news on too many screens, from their arguing in the other room, from fabrics that are too harsh on their skin, and too much sugar-salt-artificial coloring. It’s all very minor in the moment of rapidly overtaking fire, when it’s the entire atmosphere, community, and city. It’s diligently recycling cans, when CEOs are on private jets.
I read on Instagram that isn’t prudent to show your children pictures of homes burning down and of the fires. “Their brains aren’t developed to handle it. Neither are yours,” reads the post from a well-regarded journalist.
But, most of the GoFundMe’s and videos and photos lead with a charred house. Most of my feed is flames. I kept watching, but don’t show the kids.
I think about this children’s book called The One Thing You’d Save, published in 2023 by Linda Sue Park, in which a teacher asks her class of middle schoolers about the one thing they’d save if their house was on fire. It’s a hypothetical exercise. A sweater? A grand piano? Your Neil deGrasse Tyson books? The kids have every type of answer and explanation, some answering quickly and others deliberating, because what you’re sentimental for, or what you value, is, of course, personal.
Everything I can think of is my people, and the things they’ve made, which is more than one thing.
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Last night Ada woke up at 11 p.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep because she’d read a story about a werewolf just before bed. I climbed up into her top bunk and lay on a pile of oversized stuffed animals for five minutes.
When I tried to leave she said it was impossible to not be scared if she was also alone. I said she wasn’t alone; her brother was sleeping down below her in the bottom bunk. She reasoned that since he was already asleep, it was effectively like being alone, and so she was afraid.
I tried to leave and she called me back minutes later to draw the drapes even tighter.
I tried to leave again and she called me back a few minutes later to ask to crawl into my bed.
I tried to leave again and she called me back a few minutes later to turn on a light just a little bit.
Then, she called me back a few minutes after that to come lay in the bed with her.
“When is papa home?” She asked. It was nearing midnight. I urged her for the tenth time to go to bed.
He got home and she was still laying in our bed, wide awake. She peeked up over the covers and we resigned to sleep on each side of her—the very lanky 9 year old middle of a much-too-crowded bed sandwich.
“The problem is the werewolves,” she explained.
I got in on one side and Jacob, with frigid feet, got in on the other.
After a few minutes, she popped up on her own and announced she was returning to her own bed.
“I’m not scared anymore,” she announced. “You’re both here.”
//
Most everyone I know who lost their homes has expressed a similar shared sentiment: they lost all their stuff but they have their people.
In a recent interview, Tilda Swinton is talking about facing death in a role in the new Pedro Almodovar film, “What Are You Going Through,” based on the Sigrid Nunez book of the same name. She is asked about what we rely on in other people, and what we do in times of tragedy.
Swinton says: “I’ve always believed that there are three things that will always get you through: Art, friendship, and nature.”
Looking from afar, it seems like this is what people are both most grateful for, and most mournful of losing: the loss of sanctuaries (both private and public), native plants and seeds, their pottery and paintings, the love they poured into their spaces.
Art.
Friendship.
Nature.
There are endless places to donate, so don’t think too hard. Just listing two of the many, many options:
Underfunded GoFundMe campaigns. (These are at <20% of their goals)
Recommendations:
To make: Caro Chambers’ crispy farro with sausage + asparagus. So fast, so easy, so delicious + best leftovers w/an egg + arugula on top.
To read: That Elisa Gabbert quote above is from her 2020 book, The Unreality of Memory, largely about disaster culture, climate anxiety, our obsession with tragedy and doom, the potential for pandemics (from an essay written in 2017), etc. It’s less depressing and more revelatory. I wanted to underline it all. Her new collection of essays, Any Person is The Only Self is my next to-read.
Vitamin C: My brother and SIL get us Friends’ Ranches citrus for the holidays every year and it’s a true box of brightness. Cava Cava oranges ftw.
Fun movies with the kids:
Pom Poko, a 1994 Studio Ghibli (but not Miyazaki) production about a warring group of raccoons that develop the power of shape shifters as they try to defend their home against deforestation. Has a kind of Wes Anderson-style voiceover. Julian loved it.
I’m also very excited about the recently released Memoir of a Snail, a stop-motion animation about snail-collecting misfits, which the kids have deemed “creepy-looking.”
To watch: Both Black Doves (Netflix) and The Agency (Showtime), because i’m in my spy thriller era. Black Doves is more fun and less self-serious, but The Agency is more high drama/tension.
To listen:
Once every few years we suddenly re-remember Bobby McFerrin. Hush, his album collab with Yo-Yo Ma remains and forever will be one of the great albums to play for a child.
The Billie Eilish Tiny Desk Concert. Love a big production, but also love a low-fi desk sing. What a voice. What eyes.
That Tilda Swinton interview on Fresh Air. I could listen to her speak forever.
To read:
2025 Beauty Predictions by Jessica DeFino. Terrifying predictions about the intersection of celebrity, technology, capitalism, and power and how they intersect with what shapes how we look and want to look.
The Doreen St. Felix piece about the Blake Lively / Justin Baldoni train wreck and the very malleable world of narrative in which we all now exist.
All of the archives and reviews of books and culture on Celine Nguyen’s Substack, Personal Canon, a new discovery of mine.
Rec of the week: What’s one good thing you discovered / ate / listened to / watched / read this week? All tiny, joyful discoveries welcome.
I just finished the book the The Thick and the Lean and it really aligns with some of those beauty predictions. I also recommend for its commentary on capitalism and religion.
So well said, thank you. 2 things, I loved this line and feel like this ALL THE TIME: It’s diligently recycling cans, when CEOs are on private jets.
and secondly, I am amazed you mentioned that book, as I am working at this moment, on my computer, on her next book and was just thinking how eerie it was. Thank you for sharing, I think we're all looking for connection so much right now.