Goodbye to the Home Lost in the Palisades Fire
Where my grandmother gave me bridge lessons and kept Sunkist fruit gems in her porcelain candy bowl. Where I did not give my pet cactus enough water. Where we shot our BB gun at the lemon tree in the backyard. Where I wore my Redskins 1994 NFL Champions T-shirt so many times it got holes. Where my older brother slept on the empty bottom bunk when I could not fall asleep. Where I had a comforter with black and white roses, and every single Nancy Drew. Where the dial-up modem crinkled into AOL. Where the birds got drunk on our berries and crashed into the glass doors. Where my grandma grew roses on the steep hill. Where my mom’s friend Jessie painted a mural of the Santa Monica Mountains on the concrete retaining wall. Where I spent my first money at Ralphs: three dollars for a tiny stuffed white bear clutching a fake lily. Where my parents sat us down at the big wooden table and said, we have something to tell you. Where I lived with just my mother. Where I practiced what I would say to everyone on the first day of junior high. (I love how rain looks falling on water.) Where I wore a floral skirt with suspenders on picture day. Where I learned what junior high was really like. Where I was quiet and angry and turned into myself. Where I shaved my legs the first time after Marisa Rico made fun of me for having hair on them. Where I lost my virginity and found my father’s porn and smoked secret cigarettes on the roof. Where I tucked my empty bottles in my bedroom closet and took them to the neighbor’s recycling bin. Where I found my grandmother fallen on the bathroom floor. Where I kept calling 911. Where I used to drive by, after strangers lived there, eyeing it like an ex-lover. I’ve been naked with you. You will always be mine.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leslie Jamison is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Splinters, The Recovering, and The Empathy Exams; the collection of essays Make It Scream, Make It Burn, a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award; and the novel The Gin Closet, a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. She writes regularly for The New Yorker and her work has appeared in many places including The New York Times, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and the New York Review of Books. She teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn.
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Header photo by Jessica Christian.
Edited by Aube Rey Lescure.
