Safe

A quick note to say that we are safe and feel unbelievably lucky that our neighborhood was not affected by the fires and to share some resources for helping folks who lost everything.

I am writing this to you from our friends’ house in San Diego, where there are currently 11 adults, 3 children under two, and 5 dogs. We feel so lucky to be here and to be hosted so generously by friends who opened their home to anyone who needed to get out of the smoke or danger zone.

Our neighborhood was not in the path of the fires, which feels like an unimaginable fluke of good fortune. But we know people who lost their homes and businesses, all of their possessions and their entire neighborhoods. It’s impossible to wrap your head around.

One surreal part about driving down to San Diego this week was walking through our house and being unclear on whether we were packing for a visit to friends or trying to bring everything in our house that we wouldn’t want to lose. The latter felt impossible, but the former also felt kind of insane? I asked Mollie whether it was nuts to bring my surfboard and she confirmed that it was. But we also decided it was probably too much to bring all the framed photos and artwork on our walls. We settled on the family memory books, the important documents, and a few irreplaceable objects. Mostly the car was filled with everything we needed for the baby.

In other words, it felt like kind of like any other roadtrip we’ve taken in the past year. I was trying to wedge a travel crib on top of a stroller on top of a cooler filled with milk. But I also intellectually knew it was an emergency? There’s something weirdly mundane when you’re living next to an ongoing disaster but you’re not in the immediate path of destruction. I felt a version of the same thing in NYC on 9/11. At a certain point that night, we were like “I guess, we’ll watch a movie?” And we watched a DVD of Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai. This time, I had prepped all the dough for two loaves of sourdough bread and I was like… I guess I’ll bake them before we evacuate? So our house was filled with the scent of freshly baked bread, while outside the world smelled like a thick campfire.

Who knows what’s the right thing to do? Who knows what you should grab or if you’ll get a chance to come back home? In some ways, you never can know for sure, even on just a random day. But this was a week when people we know really did lose everything. It’s just unthinkable. I genuinely can’t wrap my head around it. Especially being here in San Diego where the sky is blue, the air is clear, and things are weirdly, totally normal. The parking lot at the grocery store was packed, but not because of an emergency, just because people were stocking up for the weekend. They’re getting supplies for cookouts and making mixed drinks. My brain is spinning thinking that a few hours ago, we wore n95 masks to pack up the car and did our best to dodge ash falling from the sky.

All that I know for sure is that we are lucky to be a part of a community where so many people immediately went to figure out how to help out. The food pantry volunteers showed up on Wednesday, just like they always do, and we made sure families got their groceries. Friends were starting google docs and text threads with links of families that needed donations and ways to help. Here are a few links, if you feel moved to help out as well or are local and need support:

• A compiled list of families affected by the Eaton fire that you can support directly

• Mutual Aid LA Network (MALAN) Fire & Wind Storm Resources

• Stand Up for Standups - specifically for comedians who need support, fill out this form

• Inclusive Action - a fund for open-air workers who have lost all their income

• The LA Food Bank is always a great resource and a wonderful place to donate or volunteer

• SELAH does great work year-round and is specifically helping unhoused folks during this brutal period of time to be living outside

• LA Works is keeping an updated list of volunteer needs throughout the area.

I’m sure there are many, many more extremely worthy organizations and individuals to donate to. These are just the resources I had immediate access to and could vouch for and link to while writing this post.

Thank you for reading and for supporting me and checking in on me.

This week’s links are three different perspectives on the fires that you’re probably not seeing on the front page.

My projects and upcoming events:

LIVE IN SF: Wrong Answers Only at SF Sketchfest - Sunday, January 26th at 7:00 p.m. at the Gateway Theater. If you live in the Bay Area, come see me, Samm Levine, Aparna Nancherla, and Dulcé Sloan learn from a wildlife biologist about all the animals that are roaming through your city. Tickets are onsale now

This week’s list

GREAT:

Jim Rainey is a fantastic reporter at the LA Times, with a deep sense of community and a real kindness. All his reporting on the fires has been excellent but I thought this piece about the way people have come together and helped their neighbors even as fires burned all around them was particularly moving. Neighbors pick up hoses, buckets, anything they can to stop fires

FUNNY:

I didn’t think I’d be able to find a funny thing to share this week, but Bess Kalb delivered just in time. She really hit the nail on the head: How to stay stress-free and parent perfectly in the apocalypse

INTERESTING:

The reality is that, while Los Angeles has always been at risk for fires, climate change has made it so that nowhere is truly safe. The disaster in Asheville last year was a tragic example. This essay from a climate scientist and prominent activist who spent years raising his family in Altadena is an interesting one. I don’t know that I agree with all his points, but he’s able to give both a personal and a scientific perspective on the fires.

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

Stay safe,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.