I Miss Everything: Three Girls Who Lost Their Homes on the Lasting Longing Left by the Los Angeles Fires

Words: Verônika Shulman 

I grew up in Los Angeles, and I know how special it is to exist not just near nature, but within it. You feel as though Mother Nature is embracing you, every summer breeze a little sigh of her breath. It feels both welcoming and dangerous that the waves crash and the sun burns year-round, even in Capricorn season. The 110 freeway alone feels like it could kill you, if it wanted to. Still, nothing can prepare you for the feeling of your shelter disappearing in a moment, along with the treasures and heirlooms you’ve amassed over lifetimes. Here, I interview three friends who each lost everything in the LA fires this January. They are Annabel, Marta, and Georgia.

Veronika: Tell me about your home. Describe it in detail.

Annabel: We lost my childhood home in Malibu's Las Flores Canyon. Our house was high up in the Santa Monica Mountains, overlooking the ocean. It had a '70s hunting cabin feel – high vaulted wooden ceilings, a river rock fireplace, curved archways, lots of light, books and art everywhere; a spectacular kitchen hung with my father's vast collection of copper pots and cast-iron pans. There was a sense of serene calm juxtaposed with an electric wildness; a certain volatility to the land. You could feel your smallness. It was not uncommon to cross paths with deer, red-tailed hawks, rattlesnakes, coyotes – even, once, a mountain lion. 

Marta: Living in Malibu had always been a dream of mine. After a decade of hard work and sacrifice, I made my dream come true. Our home was on Big Rock Beach, a bungalow built in 1948 with 70 feet of ocean frontage. I didn’t think spots like that existed for the rent we paid… so when we had the opportunity to rent it, it genuinely felt too good to be true. A neighbour helped me secure it, and I knew this little beach bungalow could be a “forever” home. I will never forget the feeling of having every sliding glass door open in the house – feeling the sea mist all day and night.

Georgia: It was my dream home. I could have lived there until I died and been perfectly happy. It was made in the sixties and had these old light fixtures that charmed me, and it was just tucked against the mountains. Plus, we put time and effort in to make it so that as soon as you entered, you felt at ease. I feel like some people like where they live, and some people love it. And I loved where I lived.

Veronika: What do you miss most? What does it feel like that it’s gone?

Annabel: I miss the containment and safety I felt there, the quiet, the particular quality of the light. I miss cooking in our kitchen with my mother and father. I miss our countless photographs, journals, paintings, letters, books, and family heirlooms. I miss taking long hot baths in my clawfoot tub with the windows open, the scent of wild sage and eucalyptus in the air, watching fog fill the basin of our canyon and recede like the tide. It feels by turns unbelievable and inevitable that this magic is gone, relegated to memory.  

Marta: I miss my magical closet filled with all of my favourite things, including my mom’s clothes. It was the closet I had always dreamt of, spent decades collecting and sourcing, and took so much pride in caring for. It was organised by colour like a rainbow. I miss gifts and notes from friends, dedicated books, souvenirs and art collected from travels and vacations, and to be honest, I really do miss all of my belongings. I feel like a big part of my identity and sense of self burned with the things that meant the most to me, especially being such a creative person who expresses myself through world-building. 

Also, I miss the dolphins so much. They were swimming back and forth in pods all day – you would catch them out of the corner of your eye while on a call or watching TV or even lying in bed. I will never get over watching dolphins from bed. I miss having coffee on the balcony and watching Lincoln surf right in front of the house. It feels like a dream now. What I will probably miss the most because it will never be the same is the low tide walks on Big Rock Beach with more sea stars than I could ever count. 

Georgia: I miss everything. The nature, the community. It’s not just the stuff, it’s a sense of belonging. Where you go get breakfast on the weekends. The drives, the muscle memory. Every little moment of your day. It’s one thing if you make a choice to move but when it just gets taken away from you, it’s a shock to the system. It is still devastating. Every single day. I find joy in my days, and as a parent you have to keep going. I took my daughter for ice cream just a few days after it happened, and I was grateful for those little things to remind me of the levity of life. But I miss the feeling of my room, walking down the stairs, all the little things. We never had to close the blinds because it was so private, like we were in the middle of the woods.

Veronika: What has been the most surprising thing about this process for you (and your loved ones)?

Annabel: Growing up in Malibu, wildfires have punctuated my life for as long as I can remember. I suppose it was never a question of whether, but when, our canyon home would burn. Still, very little can prepare you for a sudden loss like this – for me, it was akin to the death of a loved one. I lost my father in 2013, and that house contained most of what I had left of him – so it hit upon a deeper grief, as if I was losing him all over again. At the same time there's a strange, thorny sense of liberation that comes with losing many of your worldly possessions; faint at first, but stronger as time goes on. It's a reminder that truly, nothing is permanent. But my gratitude to have grown up where I did, to have had the childhood I did, has never been stronger.

Marta: The most surprising thing has been how lonely it feels, even when others are going through it. This kind of grief is so unsettling and having experienced losing my mom in my early 20s, the pain feels never ending and hopeless some days. It also feels more complex since I lost so many things that were my mom’s, so many things that are truly irreplaceable. There are times I question if I will ever be happy or comfortable again, if I have it in me to rebuild my life, and why this had to happen. I am such a visual person and manifester, but I never visualised what was beyond Malibu for me because I didn’t think I had to. It is surprising and upsetting how quickly people forget and move on. I feel like people in my life, even close friends, have little patience for the way I am processing this trauma. To see who shows up for you in times like these can be very surprising. We stayed until the fire was very close, less than one mile away, and the recurring thoughts from those final moments are still wreaking havoc on my nervous system.

Georgia: We didn’t really see it coming. I was six months pregnant, and we knew they were going to cut our power for a few days because of the winds. So, we went to a hotel for a few days and tried to make a staycation out of it. I didn’t even take my computer! There wasn’t a thought in my mind that this could possibly happen. I thought at worst maybe a tree would crash and break a window. But the most surprising thing is that my husband, Mike, has been really remarkable. I’ve never been more grateful for who I married. He goes through our past, does inventories with the insurance company, and figures out the future, while I keep us in line with the day-to-day, with the present.

Veronika: For you and/or your family who were displaced, where are they now, and what is the ideal plan for the next five or ten years?

Annabel: My mother was living there full-time and lost everything she owns. She stayed with my uncle in Montecito for several months, and is currently staying with my grandmother in Toluca Lake while she looks at open houses and rentals in Los Angeles and up the coast. At 72, the prospect of managing a ground-up rebuild in a high fire severity zone seems daunting, yet it's been difficult for her to imagine living anywhere else besides our beloved canyon—and since she received only a quarter of what the house was worth from insurance, her options are limited. She's not entirely sure yet what the next five years will look like. I hope we'll be able to find her somewhere special to land and begin the process of rebuilding her life.

Marta: Navigating this.

Georgia: We are in the process of rebuilding our house as fire-resistant as possible. There is no such thing as fire-proof but we are designing a house made of concrete slabs with a metal roof, etc. We are utilising disaster loans and applying to grants, anything to get back onto our little hill. 

Veronika: What (if anything) have you learned or hope to learn from this? 

Annabel: Home is not where you live, it's what lives inside of you. 

Marta: I have been reminded how strong and self-resourced I am, even when it doesn’t feel like it. I have learned that comfort is a privilege, and it’s one that I will never take for granted ever again. I have learned that everything is temporary and your entire world can be ripped apart in the matter of a few hours. I have learned to reorient my entire sense of safety while still being forced to keep up with life, business, and mere survival. 

Georgia: Honestly, it’s taught me a lot about my friends. The ones who show up unsolicited and take out the recycling, doing little things like that. I want to be like that. Also, I appreciate the radical honesty. The people who look me in the eye and ask me how I’m doing, rather than avoid the topic. It actually means a lot. Some people are a bit dismissive and say, “Lucky nothing happened to your daughters.” Yes, of course. Duh. But no one should be having to make these kinds of trades. Everyone should have shelter and family both at the same time, forever.

To donate to Altaden Girls, a very cool fire relief organisation, click here.