A Kiss Goodbye

“The Eaton Fire started at the location of my first kiss. We used to park on the shaded lane across from the mountains and sneak past a cliffside house, through a fence, and between some brush to perch on a concrete slab that overlooked the canyon. There, above the narrow watershed, we drank peach schnapps, listening to the Cure, or Prince, or Erik B. & Rakim, and fooled around.” The LA fires burned more than just houses. They burned an entire community; schools, synagogues, playgrounds, storefronts, and the sites of so many memories, including a first kiss. In this excellent piece, Josh Bearman captures what was lost when a hometown burned down. NY Mag: Mark’s House Is Gone. Heather’s House Is Gone. Eddie’s House Is Gone. (Here’s a web-archive version if you’re blocked.) “The symbolic loss of Altadena feels even more acute now, as we see the failed promise of America being channeled into a cynical, populist nightmare. Because Altadena was a place where that promise had been fulfilled. What we lost in the fire wasn’t just a town; it was a historical arrangement — living evidence of the postwar American compact, that brief window between the Great Depression and Reagan, when there was a shared national project, and the story behind it felt true because there was the sense that, someday, that story could include anyone. Altadena embodied that durable civic optimism. A place where middle-class America was not a fantasy, where a teacher’s salary really could get you your own yard and a lemon tree. Our childhood was exploratory, not preparatory. We were not brands-in-progress. We were just kids. The world was porous. Altadena was how things were supposed to be. And suddenly, it was all smoldering debris.”