I Am Porous: A Reflection & A Request

I am porous.

The fire comes, lights the sky red, rares down our cross street.

(When we throw things into a bag and run that first night, it all feels surreal)
(When we land at various family members’ homes in the following weeks, it still feels surreal)

When we return and see our neighborhood reduced to nothing, it does not.

6,000 homes destroyed, 3,000 more structures. 10,000 in all.
Our entire neighborhood gone.

We sit in purgatory. We stay half an hour away in a sterile apartment complex in Silver Lake. We try not to drive past the remnants of our former life when we return to Altadena. Considering the entire neighborhood other than our few blocks doesn’t exist anymore, this proves impossible.

(our coffee shop)

(our local temple)

Miles and miles of rubble. Of scorched dreams. Our vibrant perfect community reduced to ash and silence. Zombies like us walking through it, either in full hazmat gear or completely unprotected.

(I genuinely can’t tell who is safer)

But, due to my kidney disease, we can’t afford to take the chance.

Every day we return in full gear. Gas masks, goggles, gloves thick enough to block out the world. We talk to insurance. We find out we’re severely underinsured.

(I got renters insurance for burglaries. Who the fuck could imagine losing everything in one go?!)

We explain my rare kidney disease. How I spent last year bedridden. How I just reached remission. Most people don’t seem to think this is a problem.

They nod politely, maybe even sympathetically, but we both know the truth: To fully acknowledge my reality, they’d have to admit they’re in danger, too. That the air they’re breathing isn’t safe. That any walls still standing aren’t clean yet. That their homes, their bodies, their lives may end up just as porous as mine. It’s too much.

And so, instead, they nod. They change the subject. They tell us to wipe things down, to move on.

(As if the toxicity from the largest fire in US history can be scrubbed away with a little elbow grease)
(As if the thing that nearly killed me last year, that stole my strength, my body, my life, is just an inconvenience to be explained away)
(I know some people don’t have the option to leave)
(Most are staying because they have to)
(I don’t take this lightly)

But I am porous.
I am porous.
I am porous.

My kidneys no longer filter toxins the way they should. And, now, neither does my home.

So every day we return. We suit up. We wait for the chemical tests to return, and in the meanwhile we do the impossible potential math of what little might be salvageable, knowing that the margin for error—the cost of a miscalculation—is our health, my remission, our life.

And then the report comes in.

There’s a strange…

(What is it?) (Defeat?) (Relief?)

To getting it. We finally know. We were not being dramatic. The thick cloud of ash covering every surface of the house is actually a gnarly fine cloud filled with toxic asbestos, among many other things. The information on the report is clear.

(And there it is, finally, the word I’ve been feeling since January 8th)

Porous.
Porous.
Porous.

(All our instruments, electronics, books, the entire studio is)
(Anything fabric is)
(All the cards, journals, books I treasure are)
(All the ceramics and dishes we’ve cultivated from around the world likely are)
(I am.)

And I know, perhaps more than most, because I spent all last year learning the ins and outs of the word.

(Minimal Change Disease is both not at all what it sounds like and exactly what it sounds like)

Under a microscope, my kidneys look fine. But at the smallest level, the level you can’t see, the membranes that are supposed to hold things in—protein, nutrients, stability—just… don’t.

They let everything through.

Porous. Porous. Porous.

The first time I heard the phrase "significant proteinuria," I pictured a slow drip. A tiny leak.

(That was comforting, in a way)
(It made it sound manageable)

What it actually meant was that my body was hemorrhaging the very things meant to sustain it. That I was gaining 50 pounds of water weight while losing actual weight at a terrifying rate, muscle melting off my frame while my body swelled with fluid. That every cell in my body was betraying me, failing to hold.

I couldn’t feel it happening. Not at first. Not until I was too far gone. Not until my legs were too weak and swollen to carry me. Not until I was gasping for breath in a hospital room.

Porous. Porous. Porous.

Exactly one year later to the day, we find ourselves here again.

The walls that were supposed to protect us
(useless)
The air that should be safe to breathe
(tainted)
The home we built, broken down at the cellular level.

During a particularly dark moment in our extremely sad Silverlake airbnb (where we cannot run the HVAC because it is likely full of the same chemicals coating our home) I turn to José and realize that we have never been more porous than right the fuck now.

(And maybe that’s okay?)

Porous means vulnerable, yes.
Exposed.
Defenseless.

But porous also means open. Perhaps just as everything spills out, something else can pour in.

Last year, when my body failed me, when my kidneys leaked everything they were meant to hold, I had no choice but to let people in. To accept help. To lean on community in ways I never had before.

And now, once again, I have no choice.

I want to say that we can do this on our own. That we’ll suit up, we’ll handle it, we’ll relocate, we’ll rebuild from the rubble with nothing but grit and perseverance. That’s what I want to say.

But the truth is: we can’t. Not alone.

We do not own this home, and we have now lost almost everything in it. Insurance covers a small fraction. Past that, the costs—of relocating, of replacing what’s gone, of simply surviving this—are overwhelming.

(So I lean on the porous, on the open, on the strength of a lack of membranes and say)

If you’ve ever wanted to support José and me, now would be a really good time.

Here’s how.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-talia-jose-rebuild-after-the-eaton-fire

And if you’re not able, that’s okay too. Just being here—reading this, holding space for us—is enough.

For now I’m just trying to let the right in, like the porous thing I am.

Thank you for being here, for donating if you can, for sharing if you can, and for simply bearing witness all these years regardless. You know just how wild the past five years have been.

Funny story, speaking of: Exactly four and a half hours before the fire hit I had therapy and was telling my therapist how it was finally time to let go of hyper vigilance. How I could finally just relax.

(lol!)

The universe, as always, has a sense of humor.

Maybe next year.
Maybe never.

No matter what, we keep writing.

More next week.
t