This Girl is on Fire, And so is My Planet.

Div's Diary Entry 009 | Reflections on the Los Angeles wild fires and life & health updates

via google images: awfulannouncing

New Year, New BS and I would be lying if I tried to pretend I’m not mad and grieving about it. This has been the longest two weeks of my life. Or at least that is what it feels like.

It’s been an odd tragic kind of kinship. My hometown is burning down. My body is chronically flaring up. These have been the worst fires I have witnessed in my city in my lifetime. And while the outside world is looking in saying, It cant be that bad they’re all rich anyway, I know all too well that pretty is not immune to pain and sick is not an aesthetic like ill is not a symbol of status. I look at my city, the symptom of a chronically ill planet and know what it’s like not to be believed.

“I’m sorry, we need to send you back to the Oncologist”
”Evacuation Warning”
”This is your official diagnosis of PCOS”
”Evacuation Mandatory”

”Who cares?! Everyone in LA is rich anyway!”
”Who cares?! She doesn’t even look sick.”
”They’ll just rebuild”
”Don’t be dramatic, I’m sure you’ll be fine”

Tonight I hold my city tight and mourn with her in deep sigh. I believe you, I tell her. Sometimes all it takes is one ember to overturn years of diligent work. The only people who know the intricacies of Los Angeles’ diverse and hard working communities are people from Los Angeles. Our city isn’t just made up of celebrity and status. We are made up of first generation Americans born to immigrant parents who sacrificed everything for their Palisades palm trees. We are made of hard working Black women being everything to everyone while running multiple businesses to care for entire generations of families in Altadena. We are a melody of mother tongues where the food is never foreign and the culture runs deep. We are the houseless. The unstable. The paycheck to paycheck and living on a prayer. I often joke to myself and say that people treat Los Angeles like a Black woman. We are the overlooked. The sought after and still most hated yet most desired. But Los Angeles is not just one thing. I am not just one thing. My city… I love her because she understands me.

I have been safe from the fires in my tiny studio apartment, but I am close enough to smell the smoke on the air. I have not escaped the grief of witnessing the devastation of systemic greed. I am not safe from the trauma of witnessing the loss of life. I am not safe from witnessing a mass un-housing event. “Don’t make it about you, you weren’t directly affected” But it is about me. Its about you too. It’s about our planet. We are all directly affected by this. There are shades of grief on this spectrum of impact but it would be a mistake to assume that this is not a global event. This may be my city, but this is our planet. And she is chronically ill, like me. Her baseline has changed, like mine. She needs our support and help, like I need my community right now.

I left the ER on the 4th night of the fires and looked at my discharge papers shaking in my hands and said to my city, to my planet, I know…. but we will make it through this. We have to.

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I shared in a previous post that I spent 10 months in and out of the oncology office because I received a prognosis of cancer in late 2023. And although the doctors and I thought we figured it out, my body remains a mystery as to what is truly happening in my body. My primary doctor also suspects I have Dysautonomia, specifically ¹POTs. So I will be seeing several specialist for the next couple months. At the moment I require mobility aides to accommodate doing my daily tasks independently and my energy levels are near non-existent on some days. I am prioritizing minimizing stress and rest but Book Crumbs is my joy, its my bright spot in life. On the days I just don’t have the energy to show up I will do my best to communicate that. But I do not plan on changing my posting schedule. January is a slow Indie pub month so I have not received many submissions from authors this month but things will be picking up fro the last half of January. I want to thank you for your grace in advance. Consistency is not always accessible to me but I will do my best. I think last year I was so afraid of what was happening I couldnt even talk about it. But this year, I will not suffer in silence, I will celebrate each and every moment of my life loudly. Im anxious af! And I have been crying a lot. But I am optimistic and I am soft enough to take this blow from life and not break.

If you read this and you’re looking for ways to support me, paid subscriptions here on Substack is such a great resource for me. I want to say thank you so much to everyone here, no matter what your subscription status is here. Creating this space here on Substack has been such a beautiful experience. Thank you for your support. Thank you for being here. Thank you for empathizing with me and sharing my love of stories. Thank you for making me feel seen and valued. I may be taking this journey trembling and with a beating heart but I am not alone.

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And for ways to support Los Angeles, here are some resources put together by

The RoundUp by BLK Events LA

: https://linktr.ee/blkeventsla
Joclyn is also here on substack, please follow and support her especially if you live in the Los Angeles area!

1. I have shared all that i am comfortable sharing in this post. For more information on POTs & PCOS I have linked this resources:

[POTs] https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2023/09/recognizing-pots

[PCOS] https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/pcos