Grieving LA...

We didn’t live there very long. A fleeting four years or the expected span of a college degree. But in that time, I fell in love with LA.

It’s the place. The history and thriving neighborhoods of the place. It’s the arts and creative community of the place. And, for me, it was the people I met and worked with in that place.

And for all of them - all of that - the heart that I left behind is breaking. 

We moved to LA - actually Pasadena - in late 2011. So I was there when the last major Santa Ana winds did significant damage to old growth trees all along the San Gabriel Valley. They were punishingly harsh, but of limited duration. And there was no fire involved in those.

But this destruction - this devastation - this is beyond understanding. And it’s not done yet. The winds keep blowing and fires seem to start spontaneously in canyons and parks. And the loss and grief mounts.

I find myself wandering around our 120-year-old home in Minneapolis, looking at our stuff and trying to decide what would be in my go bag. And I’ve realized this week that it’s not the stuff itself I would miss, but the loss of this comfortable haven we’ve created for ourselves full of the warm memories of life events with family and friends over the years. It would be the loss of the neighborhood and the familiar faces that smile, before a friendly wave as they walk by on the way to the stores and restaurants down the block.  

I can only imagine the pain of that loss for the thousands in the Palisades and Altadena - and it is heartbreaking. 

LA has such a unique impact on the culture of this country. It  is a place built on the dreams and imaginations of storytellers, many of them immigrants who landed on the west coast more than a hundred years ago. As a storyteller myself, that may be why I love it so. The pioneers were people with chutzpah and grit who went west with big ambitions to launch what is now the entertainment industry built on film, TV, and music studios.

It’s that legacy of those with grit, big dreams, and vibrant imaginations that gives me strands of hope now. I know LA will come back from all this - somehow, someday. For now, I’ll look for ways to be helpful from here. Ways to contribute that will help.