First Person: My post-fire year of here and now ...Middle East

By Michele Zack

Practicing Buddhism on and off for 50 years helped me cope with the loss of our Altadena home.

The word “practice” is key; something you keep working on, not expecting to ever perfect. If your daily habit is reminding yourself to notice the impermanence and discomfort of life, the result is not being as devastated (or angered) by arising misfortune as you might otherwise be.

2025 has been my year of practicing being in the here and now.

People with different views of life find different ways to cope. Accepting it was God’s will that you lost (or didn’t lose!) your beloved home might be a more common one — but that doesn’t work for me.

My experience was more like poof! gone! There goes the old dream, now we’re in a new one.

Some version of that is what happened to so many of us in Altadena. Details of loss, and ways of grieving it vary widely and wildly. Homeowners at every stage of life, mortgage-holders and those with paid off (or almost) properties, 300 completely uninsured and many more under-insured, renters of mansions, apartments, and cute back houses, digital nomads, couch surfers, and caretakers of elderly relatives… all suddenly unhoused. Our losses extend beyond physical to memories, projects unfinished and those not quite born. I lost the thread on a book I’d been writing for two years before the fire.

“My experience was more like poof! gone! There goes the old dream, now we’re in a new one.”

Anyone who doubted it before, now knows we are all connected. I’ve been told by a couple of people I’m lucky my house burned, that it is preferable (someone called it cleaner) than having a standing home you are afraid to move back into  — especially for children — because of toxins and battles with insurance companies.

There is no choice, I’m connected to the person who says something like that, because we went through the fire collectively, although our outcomes and experiences differ. I am sorry for everything he/she/they are going through with insurance not doing or paying for, or whatever it would take, to make them feel safe enough to move back to their still-standing, beloved home. I’d swap places in a nano second if that were possible, but I respect the reality of their experience. We know people who never left smoke damaged homes or moved back in a few weeks or months, taking their chances. What variety!

Is there a hierarchy of suffering? I’m not competing for a place in it because I know I’m nowhere near the limit and that others are hurting far more than I — around the world and in Altadena. Within a day of the fire, held aloft by waves of love and kindness, offers of places to stay, food, and clothes, my rationalizing still shell-shocked mind landed firmly on “No one’s shooting at me. No one’s dropping bombs. My husband and I, our kitties, our friends are all alive, healthy, registered with FEMA. We got out with two cars, some art, and lots of pre-digital photos.”

Better to be billeted in a small but cute Tiki-themed AirBnB in Pasadena for three months as we looked for more permanent temporary housing, than in Gaza, Ukraine, or Sudan. And yes, having good, if not stellar, insurance helps immeasurably.

But anti-intuitively, the greatest comfort came from fully appreciating the home we’d created: we’d tweaked, remodeled, added onto, adjusted, painted, and planted it variously — often sharing it. We’d arrived at the point when we’d relaxed and said — done, perfect. Because we hadn’t taken for granted a single day, we hadn’t lost any of our time there.

The year since Jan. 7th, or 8th, when our home on Marengo just north of Mountain View Cemetery burned, has been filled with 1,000 meetings and events — we’ve never gotten together this often before and community spirit has never been this high! I thought I knew everyone in Altadena, but boy was I wrong.

New friends and intensified relationships are 2025’s sliver lining; the year has also come with confusion and splintering of efforts (by players I didn’t know, and groups that didn’t exist just a year ago, at least not in Altadena) — all ostensibly intent on rebuilding our community with L.A. County government and philanthropic agencies.

And yes, 2025 has also had its share of conflicts over who “owns” the tragedy, who legitimately speaks for which faction of Altadena, who is altruistic, and who is scamming and dividing us for monetary gain or power. Personal rebuilding of homes moves in tandem/tango with the bigger project of rebuilding public, civic, commercial and other shared spaces, and creates its own fears and conflicts.

This entire year I’ve focussed on being here now for whatever comes up that calls me: rebuilding in a way that can harvest opportunity from disaster, and dreaming of a stronger and more livable community.

The present  — impermanent, imperfect, and uncomfortable as it is — I can almost always bear.

Michele Zack is an Eaton fire survivor and historian of the town. Her book, “Altadena: Between Wilderness and City,” originally published in 2004, has been re-issued this year.

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