HOMECOMING
Some travel, the fires, and the meaning of home.
Note: I talk about the Los Angeles wildfires below; if reading this feels too fresh or painful, please feel free to skip this post.
Even before these devastating wildfires broke out in my beloved LA, home had been on my mind. Mid-December, Peter and I headed off on holiday, first to meet my parents in Kuala Lumpur, before continuing onto Sydney for NYE and to see our friends, Sofia and Jordan, tie the knot. KL is my birthplace and where I spent a good chunk of my childhood, sandwiched between two Houston stints. In that way, my heart is split in three. I consider these vastly different cities “home” in some way or another. I was keen to see my family but also kinda anxious - a trip home is an acute reminder of who you really are.
Your old books are also a great indicator of your past.
I was an avid reader as a kid, always had my nose in a book; what past reads had led me here today? There were the predictable (Judy Blume, one of my first literary loves) and the “of the time” (Amy Tan, my mum’s, then mine). I saw Cat Facts and The Cat Lover’s Companion (brand is strong) next to The Complete Works of Shakespeare (this is the home of an educator and an overachiever). Yes Your Teen is Crazy (no questions, your honor). Sloppy Firsts (my first blush with YA romance). My prized Dr Seuss books had long been given away (without my consent), an event that devastated me at the time. Peter was more amused by the photo shrine my parents had erected in my honor, featuring annual class pictures from middle to high school, (“Was this your Cruel Intentions phase?” he asked, pointing to my choker and flat-ironed dark hair) but to me, these books felt more telling.
There’s no rhyme or reason to why these specific titles, out of the many I’d accumulated over the years, had been saved. My parents are not very sentimental. You’d think that as expats, they’d be attached to the many things they’ve collected and sure, there’s art, furniture and trinkets from their travels. But to my knowledge, there’s no secret stash of my old drawings or writing. Photographs yes, but no old AP English essays or papier-mâché unicorns from art class. They’ve moved too much and my grandparents weren’t particularly sentimental either. Too many kids, too little space.
Besides, they’re now at the stage where they’re thinking about the The Next Chapter - hopefully getting to be grandparents at some point, but also the great beyond that. My dad is nearing eighty, a number that suddenly feels serious and while I’ve made him promise to stick around for at least another decade (that’s how it works right?), he is eager to lighten his material load. His friends are dying on him. Loss is unfortunately always on his mind. This has transmuted into an energy that can only be assuaged by organizing and making lists. Checking things off calms him down. To my knowledge, he’s unaware of Marie Kondo’s teachings, yet I have a feeling her show would soothe him tremendously. Now that I have a home of my own, he’s eager to offload the things he can’t take with him. Why wait till he’s gone?
“Promise me when you come back, you’ll go around the place and make a list with your mum.”
The coming back in question was the solo trip I’d be making after Sydney. Peter would head back to LA and I’d come back to KL for an extra week. But for now, we had ten days as a foursome and those ten days flew by. We caught up with my cousins, now old enough to share a cocktail (or three) with. I spent Christmas with my ailing godfather, who I likely won’t get to see again. Met an old family friend’s baby, one who I’ve known since we were toddlers ourselves. An aunt flew in unannounced from Perth, surprising us all at dim sum lunch. When we left for Sydney, my parents hugged Peter and assured him they’d see us soon in LA.
Our week is Australia was pure bliss, encouraged by the thrill of the fresh start the new year promises. We swam, we ate, we drank, we danced till sunrise. When it was time to fly back to Malaysia, I was on edge and prickly after being away from my bed for so long. I wanted to call a car and have an extra hour of silence from the airport, but my dad insisted on picking me up. And of course, the second I saw him standing in the arrivals hall, I didn’t feel claustrophobic or annoyed, but very grateful to have the company. It’s always nice to be baby again.
The Tuesday before the fires began (Monday evening PST), my mum and I were running errands when we thought we’d take a drive out to our old house. This wasn’t the house she brought me home to, but it was the house I lived in the longest in Malaysia. I loved that house. My parents built it from the ground up, every nook and cranny placed with intention. There were pink marble floors and imported chandeliers, terracotta roof tiles and a fir tree-lined garden. Maybe if you ask them, they’d have a different view of it, but growing up in that house felt like magic.
“I should warn you,” she said, the neighborhood is very different.”
We passed by my old elementary school first (it was a five minute walk from our house) and the the first thing I saw was the field. I spent a lot of time playing in that field; admittedly it’s where I realized that I’m not very athletic. I saw the fence through which Soli (who’d moved from the Phillipines to take care of me) would sneak nail polish remover on the days I broke dress code and wanted to avoid detention (that burgeoning rebellious streak already beginning to flare). The actual school building looked exactly the same and yet so foreign; as far as I know, there isn’t a building like that anywhere in California, or the US. I could see the bookstore on the second floor where I’d buy stickers and Sailor Moon coloring books. Next to it was the rehearsal room where I staged my first “production” (a puppet show I wrote and directed). As we drove off, I could see myself, in a white starched shirt, navy blue pinafore and side pony, walking home. I saw the homes my classmates lived in. One neighbor had died from cancer; another had left her husband. Their houses still stood, new owners going about their days inside.
As we pulled onto our street, my heart sank. Our beautiful house had become a grey and black abomination, a big square modern box. The irony of this, my least favorite aesthetic having infected this house, was too much, and maybe it was because I was coming off 76 hours without alcohol and had one brain cell and zero serotonin, but I suddenly felt deeply, deeply depressed. And then “Big Big World” by Emilia came on followed by Edward Sharpe’s “Home” and I thought you have got to be kidding me.
Perhaps sensing I was on the verge of a meltdown, my mum drove us away. We drove in silence and when I finally opened my mouth, I began to sob. I couldn’t get a handle on what I was feeling, this weird mixture of being homesick, nostalgic, sad, grateful.
“How do you think I feel,” my mum said. “I was a girl from Pandamaran. I never thought my life would take me so far from here.”
She tried to hold my hand and I insisted she keep them on the wheel because as much as I love her, her driving terrifies me on her best day. We began reminiscing about the house, all the parties they’d thrown, the sleepovers I’d had. The hopscotch chalk squares that lived almost permanently on the street. “Stop” by the Spice Girls came on next and we started singing along and laughing (she took her hands off the wheel again, to do the dance, and that really shook me back to reality).
When I woke up on Wednesday morning, LA was on fire. Los Angeles is an improbable city, built on a razor edge of disaster. It’s a desert on a fault line by the largest and deepest ocean in the world. Maybe that’s what gives it its edge - we may be seen as plastic people but the terrain, even with its eternal sunshine and beauty, has an underlying danger. The years of living here have made me immune to the shakes and tremors that terrified me at first. Not long before I took off on my trip, I was in the yard when the ground began to shake. I stumbled across the lawn and locked eyes with my cat through the window; both of us were alert but unalarmed. This wasn’t new.
But these fires felt different. The flames were devouring everything in their way. They felt angry and untameable, refusing to back down. As I packed an overnight bag to go see my aunts, I texted friends and checked in with Peter. I found myself glued to stories and my NYT app (assuming LA Times would still be behind a paywall). My parents craned their necks above my shoulders, concerned; LA had become their home too.
I kept refreshing the news and fielding are you ok texts during the hour car ride to Pandamaran, where my aunts still lived in my grandparents’ old home. They greeted my mum and I cheerfully, blissfully unaware of what was happening across the world. They had a whole day planned for us and I wanted to be present, to enjoy this special time. So I tried my best to stay in the moment, but everytime I snuck a peek at my phone, it was clear this event was catastrophic.
To keep myself distracted, I asked them to tell me stories, both happy (their childhood) and sad (the night my grandmother died). They obliged and we laughed and cried. I tried to absorb every word - if I preserved their words within me, no natural disaster could take those away. They’d be safe in my mind. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I watched as my city, barely a week into a new year, burned. I thought about how this old wooden matchbox house, full of mismatched wall hangings and faded photographs, where chickens roamed, had somehow stood all these decades. I prayed LA would too.
The fires continued to rage the next morning but life continued on in Malaysia. Peter assured me he was ok, that Chopsticks’ cat carrier had been pulled out of the garage and that my requested items had been set aside. He’d lost power but our house remained outside of the evacuation zone. I ate a piping hot dosa and drank pink rose tea with my aunts, filling them in on my life and what I hoped 2025 would bring. It felt surreal, compartmentalizing what was happening back home and what was happening here.
Back at my parents, we discussed next steps. Peter suggested I stay, that the road ahead would be a long one. I looked at pictures of entire neighborhoods decimated. I thought of my friends who’d lost their homes, and then of the people I didn’t know who had too. I felt sick and scared and wanted to stay. Life suddenly felt extra fleeting, when would I get time like this with them again? But I also wanted to go home, to be with Peter and Chopsticks, to help, but also because selfishly I wanted to see my house. We’d bought our place after two years of looking, and had spent a year making it feel like home. If there was a chance it could be gone, I wanted to see it one last time.
My parents and I spent the next few days watching the news, then catching ourselves spiraling and theatrically making a show of putting our phones away. Around us, the world kept spinning. There is no Dry January in Malaysia; Christmas markets are replaced by ones celebrating the Lunar New Year, a reminder that the western world doesn’t rule all. 2025 is the Year of the Snake and it felt cruelly apt - a snake sheds its skin to begin anew. At home, I finally went through my parents cabinets, ID-ing what might suit our home. I know they meant it as a distraction but sifting through china patterns and crystal tumblers, all I could think of were the things that had been lost.
On my flight back I dealt with my anxiety the best way I knew how - getting very saké drunk. At some point, I watched as an air stewardess carried a baby bassinet through the cabin and I was hit with deja vu. When I moved to Houston at eight months old, my mum traveled with me in one of those very same bassinets, a story she’s told many times. Where was that family heading? Was their house ok? Or was LA simply a stopover before whatever adventure they were heading onto? When we landed, the sky was a color I’d never seen, a dull gray spliced with searing streaks of orange. The entire plane was silent as we touched down.
It’s been a week since I got back. Our house is luckily safe but I have yet to unpack my suitcase. Our foyer is still crammed with the things we’d take. The winds have died down but the fear hasn’t. I feel endless waves of gratitude that we’re ok, followed by waves of heartbreak for those who aren’t. Mostly I’ve felt paralyzed. There is an air of heaviness laying over the city, the smog symbolic of the actual sentiment.
“Is this the death of taste?” Peter mused out loud when we were looking at the damage. Perhaps it’s a glib point to make looking at all the detritus. Artifacts of LA history gone. Charming, rustic, quirky old buildings gone. First homes. Forever homes. Gone. When the news broke that David Lynch had died, Netflix paid tribute to him despite never greenlighting his ideas. Would character be replaced with the bland, palatable lines developers seems to prefer?
But mostly it’s the loss of safety I mourn the most. This trauma will live deep in the city. I can feel the walls of paranoia, well-intentioned but insidious, closing in on me - is the air ok is the water ok. Am I inhaling the remnants of someone else’s home/business/car and letting it stick to my insides (and I say this as someone who’s willingly engaged in plenty of unsavory and unhygienic acts). I’ll never take a long walk on a beautiful sunny day for granted ever again. And as happens when there is loss and pain, fingers are pointed left and right. Tomorrow, an extremely divisive climate denier will take office (perhaps he already has by the time you read this). How do we keep the help and aid and community going, how do we jam the cracks so no one falls through?
Still, there are moments that make me hopeful. You’ve likely heard about the coming together that’s happening here. I can tell you first hand that the universal impulse to help is real. Volunteers are showing up in droves, donation centers are inundated with items from people who literally want to give the clothes off their back. Sorting through the piles, I saw the “stuff” that makes a home, stuff that was well-loved and brought someone joy, given in the hopes they’ll comfort someone else. I’ve always loved LA but this made me love her just a little harder. After all, where else in the world does a phoenix rise from the ashes in the form of Speidi?
I want to end this on a lighter note, maybe tell you how deliriously silly it was watching Robbie Williams perform under a cascade of fireworks at the Opera House. Or about the exquisite NYE meal we had at Huberts, sharing our resolutions for the year ahead when the forecast felt rosier. Maybe one day I’ll tell you about the quiet evening in with my parents, just us three. We ordered pizza, made gin and tonics and talked late into the night. But for now it doesn’t feel quite right. So instead, I’ll call back the memory from that wedding, of our friend Jordan standing on the pier of his dad’s yacht club, newly married with beautiful Sofia by his side. I watched him take it all in, the people he’d had to leave in Sydney alongside all the ones he’d met since, who’d traveled to be there. They stood against the horizon, the water connecting his two homes, and as he spoke my throat tightened. I remember that feeling, of looking at a sea of people you loved who’d come to celebrate you. He too had moved far from home and was making a life with someone he’d never have met had he not left. He was pursuing something that came with all sorts of heartbreak of its own. He’d taken a big risk, like so many do coming to LA, and it had worked out. LA is and has always been the cradle for these stories, and cities, like relationships, are built day by day. Life is marked by the events that define us. There are the happy ones, like births and weddings, and the sad ones. And then there are ones that change everything. For us Angelenos, this is one of them. The future seems uncertain but even through the smoke and fog and debris, the sun has been rising each day. The fear comes and goes, but we set it aside to help each other out. After all, this is the city of angels <3
beautiful reflection, we love you perv
Beautiful perv <3