It was about 4:30 PM on Tuesday, January 7, 2025 when a news alert flashed across my screen in Pennsylvania announcing fires threatening the town where we once lived, in southern California.

Our first home.

To know anything about me is to know how much home means to me. It is a quest, within and without. I have been teased about making homes out of dorm rooms, hotel rooms, storage units and vans—even out of sticks and acorns.

Having a home of our own, one that we actually owned, was a very significant milestone in our lives and in my heart. When I projected a life, I imagined a home and a family. Marriage was merely a point of embarkation, a means to entry. I imagined it would be through living this life that I would find where I was going next, what I was meant to be, and why I was here, in the grandest sense.

After X and I were married, I remember leaving the chapel, looking at one another and saying, “Do you feel any different?” Laughing and shaking our heads. Certain we were invincible.

*

Five years later, in 1997, looking at real estate, we spotted a little pink house on Embury Street, modestly priced in the midst of a big economic downturn for Los Angeles in the aerospace industry. We found a home and a project. It became a place where we learned about lathe and plaster, stripping paint, the way things work, and how long it takes to renovate anything, especially when you’re doing most of it yourself, between jobs. At the time we worked project-to-project with often-stressful gaps in between.

I close my eyes now and picture us, still there, at varying stages of that chapter in our lives. Finding the house for the first time. Closing escrow on Halloween, at my request. House empty, we put chairs on the front porch and met the children and parents of the neighborhood, before we even moved in. It was a beautiful way to say hello.

I picture how we bunked up in the living room while we worked on the bedrooms, leaving the horrible yellow shag carpet down to keep protecting the pristine hardwood floors as we worked. The house had not been touched much since its origins as a 1924 Sears Kit. The first job was getting new electrical and plumbing.

We debated hard whether to get a seismic retrofit, “earthquake ties” that secure the structure to the foundation. Earthquakes were always the big fear. One of the reasons we picked the Palisades was because it was on bedrock. Having lived through the 1994 Northridge earthquake and seen its destruction, we understood the importance of what was underneath the foundation.

*

I close my eyes again and picture the house complete. Living our lives, having dinner parties and screening movies with friends. Working hard and aspiring to the next brass ring.

I remember a telephone call from the doctor’s office telling me my blood test was positive after eight years of trying. I remember racing out to the garden, picking a daisy and taking it to X in his studio—the former garage we renovated first, so he could keep working—handing him the single, simple flower and saying: “I am pregnant!”

It is hard, but I remember normal days for almost six months, having been told it was a stable pregnancy, albeit hard to achieve.

I picture gestures of grief. Flowers, chocolates, letters, loved ones and neighbors trying to reach our pain and relieve it in some way.

Seven months later, I picture bedrest, six months of lying on my side in the middle bedroom. The anxiety. The cats coming and going. The raccoons learning the kitty-door. X sitting with me for long hours. Friends bringing library books, craft materials, Chinese herbs and afternoon peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

I picture my water breaking, leaving in haste in the middle of the night and coming home with baby G. I remember her seemingly endless tears, and wondering how I would ever learn to be a mother.

*

The giant oak tree in the back. The tiny studio next to it, designed for me to work, but ultimately becoming X’s.

G’s first swing, hanging from the glorious oak tree. (Which still stands, I think.)

I remember the goodbye-and-hello party and the tag sale. Introducing the new owners to our community and realizing how there were so many wonderful people we had yet to meet.

I admit I wanted to move east, all along. I admit Los Angeles was not always a perfect match for me. But that little house on Embury Street, the neighbors, the village within walking distance? It was truly home.

There was a spot for a smoothie, a coffee, and an ice cream. For Italian, Mexican, Chinese food and a burger. For matzo ball soup when we were sick and countless other choices when we were not. An old trustworthy hardware store. The best donuts. A treasured library. A park that baby G loved. Two grocery stores—one for every day, one for treats. And speaking of treats: Il Sogno. My mouth waters in recollection.

*

Tucked away off Sunset, through black wrought iron gates amidst brick strewn with ivy, Il Sogno felt like another land, walking out of the Palisades into a real European village. It was my favorite. Extraordinary coffees and options for lunch, but honestly, it was all about the chocolate dessert. Il Sogno was a place I went if I had time to savor. It was not a place for haste.

Il Sogno. The dream.

In the depths of reflection, I realize our little two bedroom, one bath house on Embury is the place, of all my homes since, that felt the most like a dream of home. Maybe because it was my first. Maybe because it housed so many of our more elusive dreams, professionally and personally.

After five years, we moved to Massachusetts. (Almost twenty two years ago.)

One year after our goodbye-hello party, the new owners sold our little house to developers who it torn down and replaced it with a giant cement box. Several years later, Il Sogno itself moved away.

*

Last week, the entire “alphabet street” neighborhood was destroyed by fire. All that remains is a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

And memory.

*

Seven years ago, a massive fire swept through Sonoma and Napa counties, including Santa Rosa, the town where I grew up in northern California. Its sweep, scope and destruction were enormous. It took lives and neighborhoods and irreplaceable historic places.

Just like these fires, still raging, in southern California.

I have been back to see my childhood home, and you would never know about the destruction—unless, of course, you knew what once was.

It has become un sogno for us all.

*

Godspeed to everyone dealing with this enormous loss,
to those trying to fight the fires’ continued spread,
to those who love the fighters and the grievers—as well as the land itself—
and all who stand helpless beside them.