Los Angeles is burning, and I am not home.
My family seems to have a history of unknowingly escaping disaster. In March of 2024, we crossed a bridge in one of Taiwan’s national parks. A few days later, that bridge collapsed thanks to a 7.4 earthquake. In August of 2023, as we boarded our flight to Korea, we watched a tropical storm blow through our backyard on our Ring cameras. Once, a flight to Hawaii that took off only a few hours after ours experienced intense turbulence, injuring four people. This week, as I boarded my 15-hour flight to Taiwan, my hometown started to burn.
Since I’ve landed, I’ve been unable to look away from my city on fire. Photos of firefighters and flying embers, shaky phone videos of wild winds and smoke plumes. I report updates of my friends evacuating to my parents, as if their upheaval and pain and confusion is mine. It doesn’t take much for my heart to hurt and tears to roll at the most random of times, like when I’m in a taxi on the way to Taipei 101. Here, across the ocean, the only thing I can do is watch and feel: worried I’m not home, guilty I’m not home, relieved I’m not home.
People I follow on Instagram—mostly LA creatives whose work I’ve admired—post about losing their homes and yet how grateful they are to be alive. I wonder if they are able to write about their devastation with such perspective because they are creatives, accustomed to creating something from nothing, or in this case, hope from ashes. One creator made an MTV Cribs-style video in the ruins of her home. I marvel at how she uses comedy as a coping mechanism—surely better than the alternative of utter desolation. Even in an apocalypse, Los Angelenos still articulate hope through acts of creation: crafting resources, organizing aid, telling stories of courage and kindness.
Far away from the wreckage, I can only pray, donate, and write. I am grateful to the people who have checked in, and the people who have posted about the fires, getting the word out. Continue to do so. It might feel futile in the face of flames, but words are important because they connect and mobilize. They stir hope. And sometimes they’re all we have.
To donate, please visit: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/help-victims-california-wildfires-affecting-los-angeles-county/
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