The Weight

Task 2, January 10 to January 17

“To perceive is to suffer.” Aristotle

Here was my daunting “must-do” line up for this past week: Monday, clean up and cover the outdoor furniture (a chore that is frankly beneath me); bring the dog to be washed (he smells, well…ripe); Tuesday, teeth cleaning (odious but necessary, although listening to my 30-something hygienist blather on about her trip to Costco to buy appetizers for her all-girls night-in to watch “It Ends With Us” made the time pass quickly; Wednesday, supervise the handy-man while he replaced the lock on our bathroom door (I’m not sure he appreciated my tips); Thursday, take the Toyota in for it’s 15K servicing (and check the “low tire pressure” dash warning). And today, I’m getting my hair cut (my sons call it getting my “hair” singular, cut)...

But while all of this happened (or will happen–my haircut is later today), Los Angeles, my hometown for nearly 50 years, the place where my children were born, where I lived, loved, worked, dined, danced, surfed, cried, raged and partied; the City of Angels, wonderfully diverse and accepting, where the smells of jacaranda and eucalyptus mix with smog and sea salt, where the sun shines 300 days a year from 7am til dusk, with its fertile soil (this is no exaggeration–growing on our at our last home in West LA were two avocado trees, a fence covered with passion fruit, a mexican lime tree, a meyer lime tree, along with a garden of sage, thyme and other herbs)…was burning to the ground in a fire of biblical proportions.

My wife and I have spent hours this week watching the fire coverage and I can’t tell you how utterly devastated we were to see the fire-ravaged neighborhoods, to see shell-shocked home owners with their possessions shoved into plastic bags, towing children and animals, wandering the streets in search of shelter. The majestic Pacific Coast Highway–a ribbon of wonder that winds up the coast from Santa Monica to, well, I don’t know where it ends–Oregon maybe? Now it is a bubbling hot scar lined on one side with burning abandoned cars and burned beach homes on the other. Do you know that the lifeguard stations burned? How does that happen?

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I was particularly moved by a story I heard on the radio about the travails of reporter Andria Kloke of KCRW, who was evacuated from her condo in Pacific Palisades. It was heart-breaking. Here is an excerpt:

The sky was full of ash. Almost immediately, the smoke plume was enormous overhead, and it just became unbearable. The inside of my apartment - this was maybe around noon - was completely dark. The sky outside was impenetrable - a brown wall of smoke. I couldn't focus on even selecting things to take at that point. I had wrapped up items like irreplaceable photos, photos that aren't digitized. And I also packed, essentially, what I would need for three days of my own life - toiletry kit, clothes. I knew to pack shoes that you can walk through rubble with. I knew to pack a respirator - packing things that I would need if I was able to return, but if my home was destroyed.

But still I carried on with my own life–aren’t I supposed to? What can I do? Well, I thought to myself, I better be damn empathetic, at least. And I better not just be empathetic to that which touches only my experience–I have to be empathetic when there is a fire in Atlanta, a flood in St. Petersburg, a tornado in Ames, a snowstorm in Albany…

Here’s the task: The Golden Rule is often expressed as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Well try this the next time a reporter looks into camera and says, “breaking news out of…”: Have empathy for others as you would want them to have empathy for you!