Cross-posted from our email newsletter, Words to the Wise:

Can I tell you something? At the beginning of January, I had set my intention to up my Words to the Wise game. I want to be the best hecking marketing email in your inbox. I wrote a good good kickoff message (no AI!), all about how we bring intelligent fun programs to corporate clients and make you look like a genius for choosing us. And I must have not saved my work or something because I hit refresh and I lost everything I’d written. Frustrated, I gritted my teeth and re-wrote the email. Before I hit send, the fires broke out in Los Angeles. 

Talk about losing everything. I hit pause on the email.

See, I’ve lived in California my whole life. I was born and raised in Oakland (more on that to come) and when I moved out of my parents’ house, it was to go to college in LA. I liked it, so when I graduated, I stayed, nearly 20 years in all. Although the Bay Area has always been my home, Los Angeles is where I made the transition to adulthood. It’s where I leveled up artistically and professionally, where I made dear friends who are like family, and it’s where, with my buddy Greg, I built the business that is still my full time job to this day.

Los Angeles welcomed me as a small business owner and a game designer. I could list scores and scores of memories from playing in and around Westwood, Los Feliz, Echo Park, downtown LA, Culver City, Venice Beach, the Santa Monica pier and promenade. Hollywood: I could seriously go on, and on – and on! These experiences are the very building blocks that allowed me to become a full-time game designer and my own boss.

For my friends, my peers, and co-workers in Los Angeles: I grieve with you all that has been lost in the fires, and all that has yet to be reckoned with. My neighborhood, the Oakland Hills, burned in a firestorm that raged in October of 1991, killing more than 25 people and destroying thousands of homes. One of them was mine. I was 10 years old when my house burned down in the Oakland Hills Firestorm.

I talked about the experience in last month’s voice memo: it’s a story I’ve never told before. The fire that destroyed my family’s house extinguished 30 years ago, so I bring the perspective of time and distance. Of course, when the loss is close and raw, that may not be what you everyone needs to hear, and of course I understand. It’s there for when you feel like some soothing words of the “this too shall pass” variety.

But I know what it’s like to smell the air full of ash, and to wake each day with the disorienting ramifications of loss. They reveal themself one after another like waves on a stormy ocean. It was a long time ago for me. But I remember.

Now I live in the Bay Area again, with my wife and our two kids, but no matter where you live surely by now you’ve seen resources to send aid and support to those affected. If not, here’s a link from my favorite source of late night jokes, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (sorry Jimmy Kimmel). Turns out it’s also a good place to find ways to chip in and contribute to the recovery. 

I also really resonated with this letter from Adam Burke at the LA Tourism & Convention Bureau. Their message of hope and resilience, about bringing events to LA and keeping the community strong, hits all the right notes.

If you or your team need a break from the stress, I’d love to help. Book a free call with me, and I’ll personally recommend the perfect game for you—whether it’s something you can play in LA, remotely, or anywhere in between.

I’m only a game designer and one small business owner, but LA is a very important city to me. I want to do my part to help sweep away what’s burned and be a part of growing the next vibrant, lively, dynamic and FUN chapter in LA’s history. So let’s talk about games to make your life better. We’re going to need to stay playful to see this recovery through.

With love,

Myles