(Almost) A Total Loss

....words that sum up this year. Where I'll be in 2026.

Dear Poets,

As I try to squeeze out one more newsletter this year, let me wish you well. We are knee deep in hectic season, travel season, (most excitedly) new pristine planner-and-its-blank-pages-season and more. I want to thank everyone who has been a support to me this year, especially as the lead up to the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire hangs heavily in the air. I want to be optimistic that 2026 will be a year of rebuilding for Altadena and the Palisades, both community-wide and individually for us all.

See below for a brief listing of where I’ll be in January and into February. I am still working on other events to come. It was a surprise to be scrolling along online and to come across this article about… myself.

January 10th — I will be leading a poetry workshop (open to all) at the Altadena Library. Our theme is “New Year, New Myths” and will meet from 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. This will be followed by a poetry reading (also open to the community): “From Ashes to Renewal: Voices of Resilience in Altadena” on January 24th from 2:00-4:00 p.m.

January 14th — I will be reading at the Thousand Oaks Library.

February 6th — Reading at Beyond Baroque with Lin Nelson Benedik and Patty Seyburn.

February 8th — I will be teaching a workshop at Beyond Baroque. Details to come.

February 19th — Reading at SPARC Centre Gallery in South Pasadena from 4:00-6:00 p.m.

February 28th — Leaping into a reading with Prageeta Sharma for the Fourth Saturdays reading series in Claremont.

See two pix below from my recent event at Vromans. It was an exciting moment to read at my beloved local independent. Enormous thanks again to Lois P. Jones for serving as moderator and interlocutor. And to everyone who came out on a Monday night in support. 💙

It had been a long while since I sat at the signing table. Glad to be there again. 💙

Sharing with you:

For the brave, the daring, and the committed, the annual Stafford Challenge begins on January 17th. Over a thousand people sign up each year and from around the globe. Founded by Brian Rohr and apparently ‘blessed’ by the son of William Stafford to name it such, signing up means committing to writing a poem a day for a year. (Grinders — you know who you are — here is a many-months-magnified commitment.)

From the LAT: “Halleta Alemu onstage as host of Electric Blue: Hypersphere.”

I was intrigued by this recent article in the LAT: Where to find L.A.’s lit scene this winter: 11 reading events worth the drive. There are some series listed that are new to me.

People often ask where to submit their writing. There’s never a simple answer, but I thought this was a good list recently up at Poets & Writers. Ten Outstanding Literary Magazines for Poetry. You might have to sign up for a free account to access it.

This is intriguing: a “Five Minute Lit Challenge.” Kind of New York poetry school-ish, kind of Lyn Hejinian My Life-ish. “Send us your 100-word piece about five minutes in your life and we’ll consider it for publication in Five Minutes or, if you’re a high school writer, The Hallway.”

Consider Charlotte Bronte as a teenager: At 13, Charlotte Brontë Already Knew How Good a Writer She Would Be.

And Emily Dickinson as an influencer: Influencer Emily Dickinson’s Morning Routine.

The title of this new craft book (above) made me smile: Always with the Questions! by Marilyn McCabe. I look forward to checking it out.

Stories, poems, nonfiction writing, film and documentaries are now pouring out about Altadena. Here is a collection of four (with harrowing photos to accompany them) which came out in March: Altadena: Four Stories. I’m so glad to see my friend Merrill Feitell’s expanded, haunting and poignant version here: Personal Protective Equipment.

Kudos to Ronda Piszk Broatch whose poem “In Dreams, My Ancestors” graces the side of a Poetry Reed Diffuser set. Thinking about scent, its ephemerality, and combining this with other art forms is always of interest to me. Their Poetry Reed Diffusers have some intriguing combinations.

Personal Update

As we draw close to the end of this year, which means closer to the one-year anniversary of the Eaton Fire, I find myself thinking about some of the new terms I’ve learned. The one I’ve checked on more boxes than I care to remember is “Total Loss.” On just about every form ‘fire survivors’ fill out there are three boxes offered: Total Loss, Partial Loss, and Standing Home (Uninhabitable).

In a million ways, the category I’m in is the easiest — for insurance purposes, for donation purposes, for various recovery purposes. There’s no question it gets me right to the head of the physical (and metaphorical) line every time. Another phrase which has been striking comes from the form to recalculate our property tax (which we still have to pay on our nonexistent house, just as we continue to pay a mortgage on its ghost every month): “Property Damaged or Destroyed by Misfortune or Calamity.” “Misfortune or Calamity” — that’s one way to put it.

Another standout is the phrase “to be made whole.” Every time I hear it, all I can think is WTF does that even mean?! “To be made whole” — through money? I understand it’s a legal term which translates as financial retribution and there’s no doubt we’ll take what we can get — but ‘whole’?! — on what level?! — how? It would be another Substack post to begin to even parse what that actually means: how financial disbursement could possibly ever resemble what ‘wholeness’ might look like after this line ripped down the center of our lives.

Creativity is still there in the ‘Dena.

Not long after the fire, I joined a ‘grief group’ for survivors and the therapist running it introduced another phrase that has haunted me. She talked about the "Theory of Broken Assumptions" and how people are affected once their general expectations about how life works (as she put it, that you’ll say good-bye in the morning to a loved one and see them again at the day’s end) are shattered. The idea that sudden harm can come to you — at any time, on an ordinary day — and upend the sense of safety tucked around the stats we all know but try not to not think about, is what she was talking about. When ‘sudden misfortune or calamity’ comes into your life in a way you couldn’t have imagined, how to deal with the lifelong aftershocks.

Starting with Thanksgiving there was such a pall hanging over the conversation in the various Altadena online groups I’m in. Memorials are being planned for January, speeches, press conferences, and I will try to attend what I can. But the mood hanging over everyone is just sad. I wrote in my last Substack about hearing the new take on ‘gratitude journaling’ refashioned as ‘finding daily joys’ which seems to have morphed into ‘looking for ‘micro-joys’ (with the attendant thought they’re getting smaller). I had to laugh when, in this weekend’s LAT, there was an article suggesting we look for ‘glimmers — small moments of pleasure.’ I’m not sure what they’ll shrink down to next. But, in truth, I think this is the best most ‘fire survivors’ can do right now.

Merch from the Altadena Farmers Market. I like how the mix of slogans is not all saccharine.

A few years back, during the height of the Covid pandemic, I wrote an op-ed the LAT ran: “Let 2020 be the year we do away with glossy perfection on our holiday cards.” I had been so glad to see preset card templates that said things like “Good Riddance!” and “Let’s End This Year Already” and the opening for people to be honest about how hard the year had been and break with expectation from the everyone-in-white-clothing-strolling-on-a-beach-during-sunset-glowiness.

A few weeks ago, I went looking for templates that echoed this ‘let’s keep it real’ sentiment and to my surprise (though I shouldn’t be) couldn’t find anything on the market. Post-pandemic, they’ve clearly all been removed. I picked the most neutral format I could find and mocked up a holiday card with a picture from January 8th after we went back to see for ourselves the destruction that ravaged Altadena, still (fruitlessly) hoping our home was spared. I didn’t realize when we had turned the corner to our street since the landscape was so changed. We got out of our car to see the roof of our home on the ground and everything in between crushed, vaporized, or turned to ash. It was like looking at a murder scene — but for as far as we could see — and we could see far because all the houses, for blocks around us, were just gone. There was an active fire burning where our gas line was and witnessing the obliteration of everything we owned was like entering another dimension. For the ten minutes or so we stood there, in shock, we watched the charred remains burn away.

Those moments are ones that I never hope to have again, followed by the nights we spent at a hotel in Rosemead, knowing for the first time in our lives, true housing insecurity. Despite kind offers pouring in, we asked for an extension at the hotel, bewildered as it sunk in that we truly had nowhere else to go. As I placed images on this card, I realized I wanted to share this reality and the pain we’ve lived through this year though my husband persuaded me it was just too grim. So, I’ve put a picture of our cleared lot in instead.

But the phrase “total loss” still rings in my ears. I want to resist the expectation that I should put in a kind of ‘saving grace’ caveat. Yet, it’s true that this fall the publication of my book and various launch events have been uplifting. I was glad to send personal notes alongside copies of the book to my blurbers and mentors, as I realized how far back their support extended and how poetry wends its way forward into culmination of many kinds. I loved teaching my “Back to School: Poetry Methods and Movements” class for the University of Chicago’s Graham School and had an exceptionally talented group of students. I will be grateful, always, to everyone who has donated to our GoFundMe, my dear grad school friend Catherine who worked so hard to help me try to recover from my hardest loss and the Gudrunistas (IYKYK) who sent me both fabulous and needed colorful donations.

Another Altadena Farmers Market poster. There was such collective grief at the craft market where I saw these for sale.

I was glad to go to Altadena’s 105th annual Christmas Tree Lane Lighting (a miracle the library and lane didn’t burn) but didn’t stay for the actual event. There was a “Disney Village” set up with characters, craft activities, and (mysteriously) a station where you could pack up snacks for PUSD school children (I explained I already did this everyday for my PUSD child).

They had the volunteers (below) give a shoutout that ran on Good Morning America. It is still so startling to see Altadena on a national stage and still so uncomfortable having our tragedy leveraged as an opportunity for ‘do goodism.’ Maybe they always go hand in hand?

Each green light represents the 19 people who died in the fire.

As we left the hubbub I noticed a woman sitting with neighbors just a few feet beyond the Disney display with a lit up sign that said “We Saved Our Block.” She said she was giving vodka shots to Altadena residents (only!) and persuaded my husband and myself to do a shot with her. After wading through the artificial cheer just a few feet away, I can say we felt better for it. The ‘realness’ of this — acknowledging the loss seems so essential to counterbalance the boosterism and ‘rebuild’ zeal which I know (all too well) is precarious. I expect this year will very much be about many people running out of ALE money (Assisted Living Expenses) and deep reckonings about rebuilding.

Thank you again lady who set up on Mariposa to offer shots! This felt far more real to me than the Disney Village.

In early January we’ll have our final meeting with our architect and we’ve gotten a first approval (of a series needed) on our rebuild plans. I maintain what I’ve said all along: just because we’re rebuilding (which makes the most financial sense) doesn’t mean we’ll be the ones to live in this new house. If Altadena doesn’t feel safe anymore, if it’s going to be a construction site for many years, if our neighbors rebuild at a different pace, if Altadena is rebuilt by developers, if it doesn’t feel like the ‘Dena we loved, if its demographics radically change, if long-term health effects from the fire start to come to the fore, etc. There seem to be many more reasons why we wouldn’t go back than we will. But that could, of course, completely change as well.

Hoping so. That’s all I’ve got right now.