A month back to where it all started…

This year has been one for the books. That is, if the books weren’t lost to the flames and turned into embers drifting past The Pacific Ocean.

I so foolishly borrowed my father’s complete works of William Shakespeare at Christmas last year, hoping to find inspiration for my own writing. And now it’s lost forever. When I was young and in film school at UCLA, there was a booming, thriving film industry where celluloid dreams could actually come to life on the screen through a script sale. At the time, I was a hopeful filmmaker and I, unfortunately, had the bright idea to write a modern day interpretation of Othello I titled “Broken Play”. (I just realized I lost the computer where it was saved and every copy of that script in the fires. Alas…) It was unlucky for me there was a competing script that was realized in a movie called O about high school basketball where mine was set in the world of varsity football. My agent, Brad Rosenfeld, sent it out “wide” and I got some traction on that film script, even meeting with Len Amato on the eve of the release of his movie, Analyze This. His company, Baltimore Spring Creek, wanted to meet me and I remember the long drive from The Palisades to Burbank and how I was impressed the offices were of the upstairs downstairs variety. Incidentally, Patrick Baker, the director of development there, thought he was in love with me for a beat as a result of that fateful meeting and that sentiment provided many an amusing memory…

But, that was then and this is now. Sorry. Digression is one of the occupational hazards of writing for a living.

Ten months after one of the worst natural disasters the state of California will ever endure, I had to make some decisions about my future. As The Clash put it so brilliantly in their 80s hit, I have asked myself the question repeatedly and possibly rhetorically posed in their song, “Should I stay or should I go?”

It is a challenging question considering how in love I have consistently been with The Palisades from 1985 in my youth until now…Some said it wasn’t safe and would never be a prudent decision to live there again while others still can’t find their footing in other parts of the greater Los Angeles area and, not willing to let the flames determine their fate, bravely moved back to a war zone of the natural disaster variety. Man against nature or man against the machine? In the end, it didn’t matter. I needed to be proactive in my thinking and my actions as 2026 was fast approaching and my insurance coverage didn’t extend past a year.

Should I stay in The Palisades or go onto greener pastures? What would you do? Let’s consider the facts, shall we?

The Palisades fire is officially noted as the most destructive wildfire in the history of the City of Los Angeles. 6,837 structures destroyed, 1017 damaged, and 12 unnecessary deaths of victims whose lives were lost in this senseless, smoldering tragedy. Most people would run from the trauma of the unthinkable and, for a long beat, I was one of them. And then as I started to settle in to Culver City like the hipsters who make up the coolest parts of this unfamiliar zip code, I realized I was living a lie. It’s too late in the game for me to take on a new persona or a new style of dressing when I no longer had a wardrobe to restyle. All of my clothes were incinerated. Under normal circumstances, I am a woman who looks as though she washed up on shore and there was only one place to affect that look credibly. Not to mention, I saw proof that I belonged back home most clearly on my car’s odometer.

It’s actually my replacement vehicle.

I’m not sure I have quite embraced the car as I am driving yet as mine. I still mourn my SUV and the last car my late mother owned before her death that were turned to burnt steel in the flames. I kept her car in hopes of restoring it to its former glory when I had the extra funds to dedicate to that effort. I wouldn’t have purchased this new coupe if I wasn’t left without a motor vehicle. I still sometimes kick myself for jumping into my brother’s car instead of following him out of the madness in my own vehicle. Come to think of it, I am nursing regret over heading over to my dad’s place earlier than usual that day because if I had the extra time in my own abode, I was afforded the space in my SUV to pack up what I cherished most before running for my life.

But, like I keep reminding myself, that time is gone and is the past. No sense in crying over spilt or curdled milk. Concentrate on the future is the leading conversation I entertain with myself through my internal dialogue.

And that brings me to the odometer. When I was based in The Palisades, without exaggeration, it took close to 6 months to a year to put 1000 miles on my odometer. I lived my entire life within a five mile radius and most of my errands were done on foot. In this iteration of my life, I am stunned by the amount of mileage I am clocking and I wonder symbolically if that’s because I am on a search to nowhere.

What I do know definitively? I’m not looking for a new place to land. I never was. I was searching for a new way to land back home.

Like those computers that held the three decades of my creativity and the sentimental items that, like all of my neighbors know and lost, I have made my peace they are gone forever except in my memories. That’s reality, however hard I try to cry it away. But, the future isn’t and fires or not, the future remains the great unknown for mere mortals to embrace. The present is about deciding what hill I choose to both live and die on. And, without reservation, while I know those spaces remain scarred and charred, I am invariably in Pacific Palisades in my mind and spirit, so why not move my aging body back, too?

Should I stay or go? Stay is the simplest answer.

So, I did, regardless of the advice of the sincerely concerned that it was too soon. I countered it couldn’t be soon enough to go home. I picked a space, I decorated it as though leaving The Palisades in a panic never happened, and I committed to being an active part of the rebuild.

One month down and I have no real or reel regrets. It’s time to bring this ship into the shore and throw away the oars as REO Speedwagon once sang.

I’m home for better or worse and while so many parts of it don’t resemble the utopia Pacific Palisades once was, I have it in me to contribute my best to help restore my home town to its former glory. I’m using my resolve, my camera, my tripod, and my writing skills to do it. That’s all I’ve got credibly, so…I’m actively rebuilding with resolve…

As a resident of the 90272 area, and not as a spectator from afar… I say cheers to the arduous journey and subsequent rebuild…I have the right glassware if anybody wants to join me in that toast at my place in The Palisades.

There are a lot of chapters and scripts to still left to right and write.

Incidentally, an old friend, Kathe, gifted me a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets and a new friend, Luzanne, was kind enough to give me a gorgeous copy of Oscar Wilde’s, The Picture of Dorian Gray, not knowing he is one of my all time favorite authors/playwrights or that I wrote my rendition inspired by the original called The Portrait while at UCLA Film. Both Palisadians, both cherished, both part of my future…How blessed can one scribe be?