Dear friends,

Fire broke out just as I typed Happy New Year on my January newsletter, a recap of client news and upcoming events. The wind howled so loudly that I looked out my office window. Billowing smoke engulfed the ridge above our Pacific Palisades home. Flames shot into the sky. I closed my file and emailed the Consultation Report I’d finished early to my client in Oregon. Just in case.

Then John shouted from the back of our house in the narrow canyon. The fire had leapt to the other ridge, where author Zibby Owens had a home I’d visited after A Boob’s Life was featured on her podcast. I texted her and was relieved to learn her family was safe in New York.

Now the flames were devouring the trail I’d hiked 24 hours earlier with author Beth Howard, who was visiting from Iowa. Lucky we weren’t up there today.

My phone blasted an Emergency Alert.

The winds barreled around our lemon tree. Brown smoke spewed ash across our patio furniture. I got a text from author Amy Ephron, whom I met after a Zibby’s Bookshop event for my client, Katherine Vaz. Amy saw the fire on TV and invited us to evacuate to her home. Here was a writers community paying off beyond the page.

Time to pack.

At conferences around the country, I tell writers to get to know their characters by deciding what they’d save in an emergency. I grabbed my sentimental jewelry and our cat carriers. I checked to be sure my files were backed up, loaded my laptop case, and stuffed an overnight bag with jeans and T-shirts. Then I hesitated, tempted by my sole pair of Manolo Blahniks and my beloved garage-sale vintage dress. What about my breast cancer records or my notes for a new novel? My restraining order from the man who abused my daughter? My wedding rings from my children’s father, or his death certificate citing PTSD? What story did they tell about me? It reminded me of Tim O’Brien’s classic, The Things They Carried. Not a happy tale.

I chose the cheerful memories. When my girls moved out, I took photos of our family albums page by page and shared them online. Who knew that would be so helpful? I didn’t need my awards, newspaper articles, or copies of the books we’ve written. Instead, I grabbed a framed photo of my girls, an ancient album of my parents, then slipped a few sand dollars in a baggie. I’d been collecting the delicate shells ever since finding one on the beach when I first moved here from Ohio. Now they were in bowls in every room, where I marveled over their beauty, proof of a higher power.

We spent the last panicked minutes wrangling Peanut and Tink into the cat carriers. And donning our thickest N95 masks. Our garage door rose to reveal a logjam of cars fleeing from the hills above us. The wind was gale force. Our neighbor across the street saw me hesitate and screamed, “Go!”

We joined the parade of panicked neighbors in cars inching down the street into a dark tunnel of smoke. I gripped the wheel with both hands as enormous ashes circled like brown snow. John tried to comfort the meowing cats in the back seat. Every so often we caught a glimpse of the beautiful blue sky.

Flames burst out on the mountain beside us. I huddled behind the wheel as if that would help. A school evacuation was blocking the only escape route and cars were filling both lanes. Not one person honked; we were all in this together. A helicopter burst through the smoke above us. I bit my lip as it swayed in the mighty wind, dropping a red sheet of fire retardant just short of the flames. When a second helicopter missed the mark, I asked John if there was a difference between Armageddon and Apocalypse. That’s what this felt like.

A calm descended over me. I remembered the fear of enduring a major earthquake alone with two babies, the feeling of surrender during my fast-spreading breast cancer, and the utter helplessness with my daughter’s captivity during Covid. This felt different. In this moment, I was grateful. My girls were grown, and as much as I missed them, they were far away. Safe. And if we didn’t make it out, everyone I loved knew that I loved them.

The third helicopter cut the flames before they reached us. It took ninety more minutes to reach Sunset Boulevard half a mile away. My bladder was bursting. When a patrol car made it around the gridlock, an officer shouted to abandon our cars and run down to Pacific Coast Highway. I called Amy to tell her we’d be late, and she warned us about a new fire on the coast. I kept driving. Braking mostly, then easing forward a foot now and then, trying not to hit the cars and trucks packed around us. Abandoned vehicles began to block the streets as sirens wailed in the distance. It took two more hours to get another two miles past Palisades village.

By nightfall, it was gone.

We spent the next three days at Amy’s with all of our bags packed, as the fire raged and evacuations expanded past us. As the shocking news of the town’s incineration spread, we began making calls, along with 30,000 others, to find more permanent housing.

I grabbed a granola bar from the FEMA table as we waited hours for information. We’d parked in line at dawn only to be rerouted to yet another makeshift disaster center. Everyone was kind. But no one knew anything. Except, the winds were still raging and the fire was still spreading. My sister, an Emmy-winning journalist with too much fire experience, got us in to look around and do a story on the visiting firefighters. The presence of the National Guard was heartwarming, but seeing tanks guarding demolished streets from looters was heartbreaking.

We moved to a hotel full of dogs and cats and firefighters. We were still in a warning zone and the air was mucky, but masks were free, red trucks  filled the parking lot, and stores were within walking distance. John was pleased to discover mens clothing at TJ Maxx, while I fought my loathing of Victoria’s Secret’s history to buy cheap underthings. Whatever we lost in the firestorm, it was just stuff. People mattered most. John taught his workshop on Zoom while the cats hid under the bed and I made lists upon lists upon lists.

Finally, we learned that our last home, the condo described in A Boob’s Life, burned down, but the house we fled survived. My heart goes out to the families, especially the children who grew up sheltering-at-home during Covid and now suffered the loss of that home, their security. Even with a house still standing, the future is unclear. There’s still no water and it takes a permit to get in. It’s surrounded by a toxic wasteland that will take years to rebuild.