As The World Burns

collective grief

Wednesday morning, January 8, 2025. Several wildfires are devastating Southern California. The Palisades Fire, the largest at 15,832 acres with limited containment, faces potential setbacks as more Santa Ana wind events are predicted to occur later in the week. The Eaton Fire, burning near Altadena, has already scorched approximately 14,117 acres, turning neighborhoods to ash.

On Wednesday morning, I woke to my 6:30 a.m. alarm, the phone buzzing almost soundlessly on the windowsill. My first waking thought was to hit the snooze for a few minutes, but I fought the urge and turned off the alarm instead. My second thought was, had the fires been contained at all?

In my half-awake state, I pulled on some running clothes, grabbed a guava-flavored Celsius from the fridge, and hurried outside to my car. The sky was ominously dark and ashen gray, and the air lay thick and heavy around me. I was forty minutes south of the Los Angeles fires, so it was alarming that breathing felt like pulling weight. This was unsafe weather to run in — the air quality index where I was heading was 176, well above unhealthy levels, and the wind had picked up dramatically — but I couldn’t disappoint the team waiting for me in South Gate.

For the past few months, I have been running with people in addiction treatment centers. I coach and train them for 5Ks, 10Ks, and half-marathons, but essentially, we’re working out together and talking about life. I share where I’m at in my recovery, how I got here, my struggles, etc., and they share their experiences with me. My Wednesday group is from a treatment center in South Gate, just north of Compton and Downey. It’s far enough from the fires that I knew we wouldn’t be in danger, but close enough that being outside felt unnerving. As I drove up the freeway, the sky turned a reddish-grey. When I arrived at 8 a.m., it was so dark you’d think it might rain — but I knew these weren’t rain clouds. I walked up to the men waiting in front of the facility for me, the wind whipping the falling soot sideways, stinging my eyes and catching in my mouth. I wished I had N95 masks for all of us.

The group was a decent size that morning, with 12 men eager to get outside. They often tell me that running is a great distraction from their usual meeting-intensive days and that they need this outlet to relieve the frustration and anxiety that build up while in treatment. To their disappointment, I informed everyone that we could not run due to the air quality and would take a long walk instead.

Addiction treatment centers vary in length of stay; this one is shorter, around three months, with some residents graduating even sooner. Many of the individuals here are formerly incarcerated, making this rehab their first step toward reintegration. Just as I begin to bond and build rapport with these men, they leave the facility, and a new group arrives. I don’t usually get the chance to say goodbye.

My current favorite, Rodrigo*, is always by my side. He insists on running on the side that protects me from incoming traffic. While jogging, he carries coffee in a travel mug, a habit I find both impressive and ridiculous.

Rodrigo grew more frustrated during Wednesday's walk than I’d ever seen him. When we reached the halfway point of our session, I asked the group to turn back. We were nowhere near the large park where we usually run, and his disappointment was painfully evident. But his frustration felt bigger than just the shortened session. It wasn’t just about the ash in the air or the distance we hadn’t covered — it was the helplessness we were all carrying. The lack of control over everything — the fires, the wind, maybe even recovery — weighed heavily on him, and I could feel it, too. I apologized for the brief outing, explaining the health hazards of being outside that day, and promised we’d run the full four-mile loop next week.

But as I spoke, I felt the uncertainty in my words. I wanted to believe the fires would be extinguished by then, the ash-clouded skies would clear, and Los Angeles could breathe again. But the Santa Ana winds are in control of what comes next.

Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The winds shows us how close to the edge we are.

- Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

After I dropped the men back at the facility and we said our goodbyes — some tried for hugs, while I countered with a fist bump — I headed to my car. I got inside, sprayed the windshield wiper fluid, and waited as the thin layer of ash dissolved, streaking away in pale clumps.

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*Name changed.