NASA’s new imaging gives a better understanding of the slow, mystical landslide of Palos Verdes. It also shows the direction of the movement of the soil west towards the shore, 4 inches a week as well.
The analysis confirms what we always know, growing up in the superficially quiet Palos Verdes Peninsula. It’s only a matter of time before the turbulent hillside collapses into the ocean. But it’s happening faster than I thought.
It was last year that the sanctuary where my mother’s funeral was held was demolished in a very foggy June in June 2015. Pieces by piece, the glass and wooden wayfarer chapel of Rancho Palos Verdes, designed by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright, was disassembled so that it could be saved.
Crossing the road from the Naked Foundation of the Holy House, writer Joan Didion’s former home is at the same risk of falling into the Pacific Ocean, given its location.
Didion, who passed away in 2021, was from Sacramento, who wrote with respect about Paros Verdes. In the 1960s, Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunn lived on the Spanish-style gatehouse peninsula, Didion observed a “slump in the hill.” Later, in his 2005 memoir, “Year of Magic Thinking,” Didion returned to Paros Verdes to memory about the aftermath of Dan’s death.
The final paragraph of the book concerns Avalon Cove, a watery destination for continuous landslides. Didion and Dan were swimming there, and Didion wrote about “the swells of clear water, the changing methods, the speed and power that he gained as he narrowed the rocks at the root of the point.”
“Year of Magical Thinking” stands out as an unreliable example of narration. Didion’s sadness wavys back and forth as she struggles to understand time. However, in the course of her interrogation of events surrounding her late husband’s heart attack, her prose becomes more sharp and more concise. Didion emerges from the mist of mourning and arrives clearly in the memory of Palos Verdes and the Abalone Cove. The landscape acts as a static yet dynamic container for her sorrow.
I ask myself what coast would look like with chaparrals, eucalyptus, wide-lined canyons and rich seasonal mists. I also ask myself how to lament my parents who died in Palos Verdes without the scenery we made shared memories.
These questions apply broadly and sharply to Southern Californians after the fire that claimed 29 lives and warded off more than 13,000 households. For many, the return outlook is not financially viable. For those who can go home, the familiar landmarks are no longer available.
So what should we do with this information – has the community irreparably lost to NASA confirmation that the hillside quickly folds itself?
After the fire was destroyed in 1978, Didion wrote on “The White Album.” She spotted the burnt bushes, shards of glass, and molten metal, where orchids once were. “I’ve lost three years,” the owner told Didion. “And for a moment,” she writes, “I thought we both would cry.”
In that final gesture, Didion experiences a catastrophe with her companion Angeleno. You can recall memories that have no longer a place to live with by sharing them with others. If there is no place to return to Malibu’s Moon Shadows, Palos Verdes’ Wayfarers Chapel, our own home – it’s more important than ever to talk about what’s lost. That’s how we keep it alive.
Ryan Nuurai is a writer working on memoirs about the shooting of his late mother.
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