A Firestorm of Clarity
On Tuesday morning, January 7, 2025, at 6:45 AM, I was driving from the desert to Los Angeles. I was on a film shoot the night before and left early for home. There were wind warnings, and as I drove, I felt my car being rocked back and forth by strong gusts. By nightfall, we were on fire evacuation alert.
Evacuation orders use a tiered system:
Level 1 (Get Ready) Be aware.
Level 2 (Get Set) Significant danger and prep to leave.
Level 3 (GO!) Immediate, life-threatening danger requiring immediate evacuation.
View of the Altadena fire from our bedroom window.
As the day turned to night, I compulsively checked on the Altadena fire out our bedroom window. I consulted the fire map, and technically, it wasn’t close, but as embers that looked like fireflies flew by our windows, the alert changed to Level 2 - Get set and ready to leave. My heart in my stomach, I got two cat carriers out for Bagheera and Claire, the leash for Stella, and then paced. My husband was out of town, so he kept texting and calling for updates.
If someone were to film me that night, they would have seen a woman pacing nonstop from room to room, followed by a little dog. She would pick up something, put it down, then rifle around in a drawer, pull something out, and place it on the pile on the floor- things she wanted to save from the fire.
What I learned about myself in this high-stakes moment was that when it was go time for me, I came up woefully short. As the wind and fires raged on, as I paced in my home, none of my possessions meant anything to me. As long as the animals and I were safe, that’s where my mind stopped. I couldn’t feel any emotion toward things. I dutifully got out the safe, but if we had to evacuate, I had forgotten life’s logistics.
What I missed:
I would have forgotten our computers, and all our photos are in there. I would have overlooked the cat and dog food, as well as my thyroid medication. I wouldn’t have had clothes to wear or a phone charger.
What I did gather slowly were odd little bits that reminded me of people I’ve lost.
A Peet’s coffee stirrer stick signed by my dad, 1995
I roamed around taking a film of art that was too big to put in the car, but nothing meant anything emotionally to me in those moments. I couldn’t think about my future self. I was blank.
Around 9 PM, there was loud pounding on our front door. “Oh No!” I panicked, “That must mean we have to leave NOW.” I rushed down the stairs to the front door, flung it open, and there in the hurricane-force winds was a man desperately hanging onto three paintings. We stood stock still, staring for a moment, when he realized he had knocked on the wrong door. He was our neighbor’s brother-in-law who had just fled his home in the Palisades with what little he could carry.
What can we literally carry, and what do we carry inside of us?
I had time to roam our home and save things. What couldn’t be replaced? I was numb emotionally, so I had to think about what, if burned up, would I be sad about later?
What makes someone “them”? With our backs against the wall, what really means something to us? For me, it was nothing I had spent any money on or even inherited. As the night dragged on, my little go-bag was practically empty with a few bits of cherished memories.
Recently, a friend whose child is in college said that her daughter can’t read her grandparents' cards because they're written in cursive. How sad to lose handwriting. I love my dad's handwritten notes. My mom is 91, and she doesn’t write her famous “To Do” lists anymore, but I’ve saved one. A tiny spiral tablet that she always carried in her purse. What makes her handwriting look the way it does is the sum of all the parts that make up that very personal expression. I hope handwriting comes back in style like records and roller skating.
The next day, Wednesday, our cat Bagheera wouldn’t eat very much. He had just turned 17 and received an outstanding bill of health from the vet. He seemed a little stressed, but we all were, so I sat with him and felt he would be back to himself soon.
The next morning, around 6 AM, I went to feed Bagheera breakfast. He greeted me normally and was starting to eat his breakfast when, all of a sudden, he whipped his body around, lay on his back, eyes wild, frantically pawing the air as if he were fighting an invisible foe. I pulled him toward me to soothe him and felt his heart stop beating in my hand. He was gone.
Bagheera McGinley, January 2008 to January 2025
We lost our sweetest boy. We lost him so fast. As the fires raged in Altadena and the Palisades, his gentle soul left the planet in a flash.
All year, I’ve thought about him. All year, I’ve thought about how little any material things meant to me when it came down to it. I was crystal clear.
As we head into the 2025 holiday season, my hope for you is that it is filled with love, peace, clarity, and connection. I hope you are somehow able to start 2026 rejuvenated rather than depleted. The world won’t do this for us. It wants us to stay busy and consume more, but you get to decide what you carry forward.
Many blessings to you in 2026! It’s the Year of the Fire Horse, so hang on to your hat.
Jo