Help Darya & Arielle Rebuild After Palisades Fire

Darya Khonsary is organizing this fundraiser.

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Our home was everything to us and has been destroyed by the

Pacific Palisades Fire. It was the house that Arielle grew up in - we very much fell in love with one another inside of this house 14 years ago. For whatever reason I was always very attached to the land that the house was built on and in high school I told Arielle that I wanted us to live here when we were older - 4 years ago during covid Arielle’s Mother offered to rent it out to us - felt like a dream come true to me - a dream that I had manifested. The spirit of the house was calling to me. The house that I grew up in was only 20 minutes away - our childhood homes share the same mountains- the Santa Monica mountain range. We have spent the past few years renovating, updating, beautifying our little cottage, making it ours. We called her our little witch house - and called ourselves the lesbian witches of the Palisades. We felt rooted here, our hearts more connected than ever. We planted trees here… we had our sacred lemon tree, orange tree, fig tree, olive trees…a little fairy house under the sacred fig where we would bury dead bees... Everyone who drove past our house or walked up to our front door would frequently see one of our kitties sitting in the window.... our neighbors knew they could talk to Ahu or Hina through the window and that they would respond. I am so beyond devastated to have lost this magical space. My heart is shattered. Thank God my mom was at our house when the mandatory evacuations started and she was able to get out safely with our two kitties. Everything else was left behind, both of our family’s heirloom jewelry, my great grandmothers objects I have held onto for years since she passed, Arielle’s grandmother’s writings on her family history, photos from our grandparents era, photos of our parents, photos of us growing up. Everything that we collected together over the years - imagine all of the tiny beautiful objects we have exchanged with one another over the past 14 years. Everything is gone - all burned up by the fire. Little notes we wrote to each other as teenagers, every precious gift we ever gave each other.. the gold from Iran that my great grandmother left for me... my mother's wedding jewelry.. irreplaceable momentos from our travels….art and books collected over years. Our entire archive of incredible and irreplaceable vintage, antiques, collectors pieces we had built together for almost two decades. We also started our business in this house - it served as our office for three years & Arielle had just finally put together her studio in the back with all of her archives and tons of materials as well as irreplaceable works of art. It is now all gone. I transitioned in this house - I recovered from two major surgeries in this house. This house was more than our home, it was our sanctuary. Not sure how to move on or recover from this - we will now only have memories of our most sacred space. And for us to be witnessing all of this destruction from a distance…. to not be able to help... I have nothing left in me.

We have no idea how many months(?) years(?) it will take to rebuild from this. Not only is our home lost, our entire neighborhood, our community has been decimated. In the meantime Arielle & I will need to find temporary housing while we sort through the physical wreckage, emotional trauma & immense legal documentation required to move forward. Unfortunately nothing in our home was insured - a very big wake up call in more ways than one. For many reasons Arielle & I are embarrassed to ask for help from our community at this time.. Genuinely have no idea how to begin to move on from this unimaginable loss.

We have a long road ahead of us rebuilding our life from scratch. Any help would be appreciated in trying to get us back on our feet. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Darya Khonsary & Arielle Chiara Khonsary