the speed of life
stretches of time that insist on action, on grief, on your heart
There are stretches of time that feel stale, unmoving. You wake up in the same bed in the same Old Navy sweats and wonder if you’ve ever been anywhere else, if you’ll ever be anywhere else, if you’ll ever hang your clean laundry or repot that snake plant. You pour your coffee, check your email, note which color glasses Al Roker is wearing today. You text your friends in both delight and annoyance. You make a veggie burger. You write a joke. It’s a mundane pace that can comfort or torment.
Then, there are days when your dad collapses.
There are days when your mom calls to say she’s not doing well, days when you cancel flights, days when you sob alone in your Subaru.
There are days when your city burns.
You tell the paramedics they have to do something. Your mouth is too dry. No one can understand you. You drive to the ER. You hear, “Code Blue, Bed 1, Code Blue, Bed 1.” Your dad is in Bed 1. They use the paddles. You beg them to take you back. You see your dad. He’s alert. You’re trying to comfort him. You are immediately approached by a woman with a clipboard, “Do you have his insurance card?” It’s Christmas morning.
The vending machine hum would drive you to violence if you weren’t nearly catatonic. You’ve been on speaker phone with your mom for hours. She’s just there for you, chain-smoking 3,000 miles away. “What’s that noise?” “Vending machine.” “Oh.” “Yeah.” “Any word?” “No.” “Ok.” You stare at crumbs on the waiting room floor hoping that at least no one is eating Doritos in the operating room.
You spend a few days with Dad in the surgical ICU. You don’t know when he’s going to be able to work again. You swallow any weird feelings and put together a GoFundMe. The generosity makes you all weepy all the time. You get a call from your aunt. Your grandmother isn’t doing well. You’re not sure if you should tell your dad but you do. Wait, you haven’t talked to your mom yet today. You again Google which in-patient mental health facilities take Medicaid. You call her and she doesn’t answer. You text and she doesn’t answer. You check her last active status on Facebook Messenger. You see she was on 47 minutes ago. You exhale.
You call your grandfather a day after his 95th birthday. You tell him you’re sorry you had to cancel your flight and miss his party; he tells you something about a paper mill in the 40s. You’re not listening because you’re in the lobby of a Planet Fitness desperate to reclaim your own sanity. You feel guilty for not really listening so you say, “Wow!” a lot. You hope they mean it when they say No Judgement Zone.
You mop your apartment. You call your mom. You call your mom. You call your mom. You call your best friends. You watch football from Room 518B at Hollywood Presbyterian. You wake up early and walk your dad back to surgery. You talk to another family in the waiting room. “An abdominal aneurism,” they say, shoulders tense, hands clasped. A mother and a son. You accept their offer of a cough drop even though you don’t have a cough. The son gives you three and you awkwardly drop one under the chair. You talk with them about Echo Park and prayer.
You were supposed to bring your dad a New Years Eve / post-surgery tuna roll to the hospital an hour ago. You wait at the server station and decide to order cheap hot sake. You do not feel bad. You remember your Mom might want a nice dinner too. You do feel bad. You send a Grubhub gift card by email. It’s your way of saying, “I love you, you are important to me, I want good things for you, I love you, I want you to love you, it’s almost a new year, please know that there are more years, I love you.”
You snap at a rude nurse. You cry in a voice text. You squeeze your body through hundreds of happy families and snap a photo of the fake snow. You regret coming to The Americana so alone and worn down. You order a spicy margarita and go watch Babygirl in between two couples. You eat the peanut m&ms you bought even though they’re not vegan. You no longer regret coming The Americana so alone and worn down.
You get in bed and talk on the phone to a boy who’s too far away from you. You watch Frasier and you listen to him breathe and he hears you sigh and you again wish for a cross-country portal.
You play Skip-Bo with Dad on a sterile dinner tray. You cackle as he tells the nurse something about “bum worm chocolate” because he saw an episode of Bluey that morning on the hospital tv. You are worried she’s going to send him for a psych eval. You get high and fall asleep alone on your couch to When Harry Met Sally after midnight knowing it’s a new year but not knowing what that means.
You eventually bring your dad back home to your studio apartment. Your grandmother still isn’t doing well. You remember you have a JOB? You are supposed to go back to work. What day is it? You have to write grant applications, you have compile budgets, you have to host meetings, you have to be have a brain. You lose focus and decide to go to the car wash and have dinner with Dad instead.
You have to call the doctor. You have to call the Medi-Cal office. You remember you never scheduled your own cat scan. You remember you signed up for a writing workshop and it starts TOMORROW.
It’s…a humor workshop.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
You get a Red Flag alert. You feel the wind. You hear the wind. You’re in someone else’s apartment watching their dog. Your dad is at your apartment alone. You watch the lights flicker. You hear there’s a big fire in the Palisades. You duck and narrowly avoid being hit by an airborne palm frond. Your dad texts, “internet’s out.” You hear there’s a big fire in Altadena. You are supposed to be working, you are supposed to be taking care of your dad, you are supposed to be checking on your mom, you are supposed to be at the gym, you are supposed to be walking the dog, you are supposed to be writing, you are supposed to be grateful.
You answer a text from a client — “I have to go to the hospital, can you take Moxy for me for a couple days?” You call your dad, “Do you want to watch a 15 year-old chihuahua?” “Sure!” You text her back, “Yes, bring her by in 30 minutes?”
You open Instagram. You see it: this little tiny theater that you adore is burning.
You were just there — you were humiliating yourself on that little stage. You were confessing on that little stage. You were just on a date on that little stage. You showed up there every Thursday from 6-10pm to be stupid and brave and to make new friends, bad art and good art. Three days before Christmas, your sweet friends drove there and parked and your dad sat in the back row and all of them together listened you talk about hemorrhoids and your bra size for 30 minutes on that little stage (like I said, good art).
You took a bow and gave hugs and the last Substack you wrote was about the work you were trying on that little stage, in that little space.
You sit there, heavy. “Oh. This is really happening. The city is really burning.”
You are driving from one apartment to the other. Your car hits the top of a hill at 6:00pm and just then, you look ahead to see the Hills go up in flames. You happen to literally be outside your best friend’s building. You pull over and call. “Come outside. Now. Come outside now. You both need to come outside now.” You hear neighbors. Clamoring. Phone calls. You’re all in masks because the air quality color is dark purple on the graph. You never want it to be dark purple on the graph.
You watch the fire burn. You accept that the fire does not care if you live in the city. You allow yourselves to stand on the hill in awe for maybe five minutes. You realize you should act. You call your dad. “Hi. Don’t panic. Pack a bag.” You call your friend in Franklin Village, “Have you se—?” “Yes, I’m packing.” “Ok text me when you’re somewhere safe.”
You text your other friends, they tell you they’re leaving and you exhale again. You get a call from the owner of the other dog in the apartment you’ve been staying in. She’s panicked and she moved her flight, she’s having Luciana picked up early. “Ok, I’ll be back there in 30 to help.” You pack up the dog, you clean that apartment, you pack your bags. You drive back home to your own apartment.
Your dad asks about Carmen, your neighbor. You remember she has her grandchildren with her in a one-bedroom apartment. You know she does not drive. You knock on her door. “This my number, this is my dad’s number, this is the app you should download. I have a credit card. I have a SUV. If we have to leave, we will all leave.” You then remember you have Moxy, an elderly chihuahua, in your care too. You think, “oh, well, she’s small enough.”
Your dad is using his iPhone hot spot to power local news on the tv. You gather thousands of family photos, your birth certificate, your Prozac and your Valtrex. You watch the planes dump the water. It’s…working? Are the winds really dying down? You…maybe…sort of…kind of…can…possibly…breathe? You send one million texts. You post updates online. You keep your phone ringer on and allow yourself “rest.”
You clean up dog pee. You clean up dog poop. You ask your dad if he’s ok. You remind him the mask has to go over his nose and mouth. “I know that!” You get ash in your eyes. You buy salads for lunch. You drive your dad to the doctor’s. The door is locked. You call the doctor’s. The call fails. You sleep on and off. You sporadically walk over to the couch to make sure your dad is breathing — the snoring is too erratic for peace of mind.
You are…still technically supposed to be working. Your boss tells you not to worry, but she also doesn’t know how little you’ve done since mid-December. So, like, you think you should maybe get something done.
You drive to a friend’s co-working space for WiFi and quiet. You manage to make sentences out of words. You write some emails. You want to kick the woman at your shared table who starts talking to you because she’s “so bored.” You want to tell her if she’s so bored there are probably people who could use her help. Instead you say something like, “ha, uh, yeah.” You pack up and walk to your car. You call your mom. She doesn’t answer. You feel anxious so you stop off for fries.
For obvious reasons, you don’t tell your dad about the fries. You eat a heart-healthy dinner with him on the couch instead. You text a faraway boy. You get a text from a friend, the evacuation zone is moving closer to her apartment. You can’t stop doom-scrolling. You can’t stop noting how many times your dad stops breathing in his sleep. You eventually disassociate and fall asleep to Season 5 of an unabashed New Girl rewatch remembering how much you hate Season 5.
You wake up, you make your coffee, you write it down.
There are stretches of time that stand still and there are stretches of time that insist on action, on grief, on your heart. It’s all the speed of life.
If you’re currently in a stiller time, and/or you have the means, I am sharing a few important fundraisers here (including a reposting of my dad’s GoFundMe below just in case we can raise those last $800 to help him cover expenses through early March).
So, so, so much love to you all, at every speed.
So much of the national media attention and discourse around the wildfires is focused on the devastation in the Pacific Palisades that I’d also like to highlight a few Altadena families who aren’t yet close to reaching their goal:
There’s a (heartbreakingly long) list of Altadena-based GoFundMe campaigns here if you’d like to share with your networks.
Lastly, Pasadena Humane desperately needs help as they triage an overwhelming influx of lost and injured pets, and regretfully, begin the process of recovering any pets who did not make it. They will scan for microchips and ensure families have the option for private burial. 💔❤️
You are resilience.
I’m weeping and laughing all at once as I read this. What a spectacular essay, Justine. Just beautiful ❤️