The community is still here

Even if the building is not.

“Is that pink smoke?”

The kids were rambunctiously terrorizing our small living room without a care in the world. I was cleaning up dinner in a race against a possible power outage. Miraculously, we had kept the lights on all day. I paused to look out my big, beautiful front window, which overlooked the San Gabriel mountains––a view I typically enjoyed. But tonight it was ominous. A hazy, glowing pink began to emerge in the foothills. Weird.

I continued wiping, sweeping, and mopping. I prepared the kids for their bedtime routine to calm my nerves, rattled by the strongest winds I’ve ever felt, not on the Cliffs of Moher. The lights flickered, and the power went out. It came back. The pink smoke turned into a small cluster of flames. I bathed them, and the power went out again for a few moments. I kept walking by the big window between each task.

The fire grew bigger and spread like a trail down the mountain. The kids got into their pajamas with soggy hair––jumped on the couch and sang a made-up song about rainbow power. The front window was pitch black, except for a bright red blaze. I paced. They sang.

My stomach tightened.

In September of 2020, we experienced The Bobcat fire, which scorched the same terrain. My nice view was lit up with a fire looming just over the crest of the mountain. It stayed that way for, what seemed like weeks. A suffocating period of time where we could not go out because of the smoke, but could also not find solace inside because of Covid. I thought we’d be free of fires for a while after that event. But they came back, and worse. The last fire never felt like a real threat, but this one did.

Should we go? It looks like the fire is receding; the firefighters are there, we thought. Oh no, it’s getting bigger again.

A hotel? Call your parents and ask if we can come.

What about the cats? Get the carrier––oh and the bags in case.

I’m sure we’ll be fine. We’re on the other side of the freeway.

But we won’t sleep tonight even if we stay. Get the folder of documents.

I texted one of my close friends, who was also leaving her Altadena home.

I grabbed all the good clothes, she said. I’ll laugh at how much I brought tomorrow.

I stuffed my favorite jeans and purses in a tote bag in case––to laugh at tomorrow over text.

Download the Watch Duty app, Instagram was telling me.

Pack the bags you brought in. If we’re going, I’d leave now while the kids think it’s fun to get in the car in pajamas and not in the middle of the night.

The kids not complaining about a late bedtime. The fire looms in the window.

So we went. And we didn’t come back for a week.

Before arriving in San Diego, I knew we’d made the right decision. A friend texted me and another mutual friend.

Just heard the news. I’m so sorry about B’nai––so terrible 😭😭.

What happened?

It’s burning down. The building is on fire. I’m so sorry.

I didn’t want to believe it, so I didn’t.

Just hours ago, I was there. I hurriedly scooped up my daughter from her classroom, holding her close against gusts, casually joking about the sail on the upper yard that lost the fight to the wind. Was that rushed, flippant moment the last time I would ever set foot in that special space we’d called home for three and a half years?

Our preschool is unique—"It’s like a co-op without the commitment," I recently exclaimed! We actually look forward to socializing at weekend birthday parties and frequently text each other to ask if anyone wants to kill the monotony of a Sunday afternoon together. There is endless schmoozing at drop-off and lingering in the parking lot at pickup. We exchange glances on Friday mornings at Shabbat sing.

When my son turned two, it was a big deal that he was starting school for so many reasons. But perhaps most notably, having spent most of his life in a pandemic lockdown, it was the first time our identities as parents had been externalized. Oh, you’re Wilder’s mom. Yes! I am someone’s mom! Seeing my experience over the last couple of years finally reflected back to me; this is where I feel like I became a parent.

My son’s first day of preschool.

At his first-year orientation, I met the class’s parents, four of whom were also pregnant with their second––all of us due within weeks of each other. With our big kids off to elementary school, the little ones are now best friends in their own class. It’s hard to find or build a village these days, and this was pretty close.

The following day, I woke up to check the evacuation zones on the Watch Duty app immediately. It took me a minute to orient myself on the map. Our house was still in a “be prepared to evacuation zone.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

Incessant texting with friends. Repetitive refreshes. An insatiable hunger for information that felt like the early days of the pandemic. Links to early news articles reporting on the synagogue that was lost. They barely mentioned the preschool, but my friend was right; it was gone.

All I could think about was all their little cubbies melting. I had just refilled hers with more clothes earlier that day. The silly nap mats, toys, artwork, ugly little homemade menorahs from Hanukkah that hadn’t been taken home, and circle-time mats were engulfed in flames.

My friend texted. She wasn’t laughing about the clothes she shoved in the car––they were all she had left.

We waited days to tell the kids. It never seemed the right time because everyone was having a bad time––and we weren’t even having the worst time.

News of more friends’ homes lost rolled in like high tide. GoFundMe links as far as the eye could see. My bank account could not keep up with my heart.

Our son’s school was spared but remained closed for three weeks. He had gone back for 1.5 days after two weeks of winter break. I called and emailed preschools. Do you have a spot for an almost 3-year-old?

I made it my mission to hound brands, source special clothing and belongings for friends, and replace them— small acts that felt big.

We fled to Ojai for a weekend with displaced friends, finally fulfilling my son’s wish to stay in a hotel. He wished it were fancier and had a restaurant at the bottom. Fair enough.

We got back home and settled in. I hadn’t stopped working. School started––for me. The kids watched too much television. We brought the air purifiers in from the garage. I ordered new masks for the kids––rainbow, of course.

Everything was fine but still icky. The air quality was terrifying, mainly because there was no good information available other than we might be breathing in asbestos for the next decade.

Were you affected by the fires?

No! Well, yes, but…

Your house?

It’s fine! Yes, our house is fine. We’re lucky.

Still, the WhatsApp group for our preschool community was alive. There was news of another family that had lost everything, more GoFundMes and resources. What are we going to do? Where is everyone going?

Scattered everywhere. Displacement, availability, and convenience spread our community of families like ashes. A childcare pod was proposed. It would never work with our schedules.

I noticed the preschool year calendar tacked to the bulletin board in our kitchen months ago. I immediately ripped it out and threw it in the recycling. It was too depressing to look at.

However, we must make decisions based on the best information available at any given moment. The community and our school were in limbo.

So, we enrolled our daughter in a Montessori school, which a good family friend’s daughter has attended for years. We took a tour, and yes, we convinced ourselves she would love it. What nice teachers! What a lovely space!

One week to potty train before starting. No problem.

No pants. Jelly beans. Chocolate chips. Gabby figurines. This was working!

For two days.

That’s it. Then it stopped––the willingness. I knew she could do it, and still, she wouldn’t. I hit one of my lowest points in parenting to date. I screamed, sobbed, begged, offering an entire bag of chocolate chips, stickers, and Disneyland, and pleaded with her to tell me why she chose me as her mother—still, nothing. Too much change and heartache to deal with the potty. Who could blame her?

We sent her without a diaper anyway. Let the teachers do it, friends said.

Two and a half weeks later, they were only slightly closer to success with her progress in using the toilet. I did laundry daily to wash her four pairs of soiled pants. As much as they told me she was making incremental improvements, I knew they weren’t getting to see her authentic self. She was sullen. She missed her friends and teachers, the only community she’d known.

Wait! Our former preschool director somehow found a new location to hold the school. We could come back.

But, the school burned down, my son pointed out.

I said the school isn’t a building; it’s the people. If you showed up to school and no one was there, would it still be a school?

I guess not.

The school still exists because the community is still here, and now there’s a new building for the people. He seemed to accept this. On a rainy Thursday evening, all four of us went to the open house of the new school space. My daughter’s face lit up the room. We knew the choice was obvious.

Though the Montessori school was a place where we knew she’d eventually thrive, it wasn’t “our people.” And, like I told my son, a community is the people, not the shelter. We’d found a new home, so the people needed to return. Parenting has a way of surfacing your most strongly held values and letting them lead the way.

This past Tuesday was her last day at the interim preschool. They said they were sad to see her go but happy to know she was returning to her community.

We all are. I reprinted the school calendar and put it back on the bulletin board.