This metaphor is a little too on the nose

I'd been away from the news today, mostly, and had only been tangentially aware of another round of California wildfires happening. Checking in with things, I now know that one of the most devastated areas is a part of Los Angeles I know fairly well.

Pacific Palisades is where my grandfather lived for most of my life, and probably about half of his, in two different stints. I've not had reason to go there since Grandpa passed away in 2014, but I visited countless times over the years and spent many an hour in his neighborhood, walking the wealthy streets of the Palisades and driving the canyon roads to and from the ocean and eating at pizza joints and ethnic restaurants along Sunset Boulevard.

Grandpa's house was near the southeasternmost part of the fire zone, as it stands here on Wednesday night. That house had already been sold and demolished to make way for someone else's new McMansion, but whatever is there now is likely either already burned or not long for the world.

The bounds of the Palisades fire as of about 10:30pm January 8th.
In the blowup map below I put a little yellow dot where Grandpa's house was.

I saw video footage of the nearby Gelson's market consumed by flames; the former drug store where I once bought comic books is a smoking ruin; the grounds around the high school my mom went to were blazing.

Adam West's old house, where Grandpa took me once in 1977 to meet TV's Batman, is likely gone. The charming little Mexican restaurant that was Grandpa's favorite—and that made some of the best salsa ever created—was, I think, already out of business, but that whole block may now be nothing but embers. The Post Office where Grandpa had a couple of encounters with Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully may still be standing, but as charred bricks. Reports are that Will Rogers State Park, where I think we had a couple of events with extended family, if I remember correctly, has been pretty thoroughly wiped out.

 Things change, nothing is constant, and the world turns on. The people that live in the Palisades are generally wealthy, so it will rebound and new structures will replace the old. But I find I feel its loss a little bit. Grandpa's been gone a while, I've gotten used to his absence though I of course miss him, but even though I might not have ever gone back to his old neighborhood I am sad that it's now mostly destroyed.

As a metaphor for our new year to come, it lacks subtlety.