Last Tuesday, while driving in Torrance, I saw a man holding up a sign in block letters: “ANYTHING.”

With only a couple of seconds to decide to give or not to give, to slow down, was it safe, I weighed what I could give. The little snack bag the Red Cross had given me? One or two dollars I could dig from my purse? I’d rather give food in case he’d use money for drugs.

The snack bag at my side was funky. It had a few fig bars in it— one of which I’d sampled—I didn’t like it. It also had graham cracker cookies that had tasted sugary and good. I’d received it on a trip to a disaster assistance area in Altadena, the town I’d departed because I was evacuated— I mean really evacuated and last-minute, seeing a tall golden flame reflected in the window by my bed.

I was now on my way to find the Homewood Suites in Redondo Beach — a place that had kitchenettes (!) I would later discover, funded by FEMA.

This was the seventh location I’d be staying in since Jan. 8 when the wildfires tore across Eaton Canyon and reached the west side of our town. The flame I saw, I found out later, was the house across the street burning down. Amazingly, with the firefighters’ focus on it, my apartment building stood, while the school next to it, Franklin Elementary, burned down.

I’d stayed at the generous All Saints Church, with a kind family in Claremont, in a downtown L.A. hotel called STILES, the Motel Six in Pasadena, Redak Gateway Hotel (boasting bidets) and the hospitable family of a friend in Redondo Beach — all in one month.

When I’d received the snack bag, it was on my on my sad journey through Altadena I’d driven across a dreary never-ending graveyard of brick chimneys, adobe remnants, burnt cars and debris sticking out all over the place. The bag was at the bottom of a tub with protective equipment — Tyvek body suits and booties, goggles and N95 masks given to me by the Red Cross in a grocery parking lot.

In the two seconds I had to decide how to handle seeing the man with the sign saying “ANYTHING,” I decided to grant him the snack bag from the Red Cross, or what was left of it.

After all, his sign said ANYTHING. This crumpled, already sampled bag met that description. I reached out of the window and handed it to the man, who looked distressed and confused.

The man’s sign hitchhiked into my mind today, among the many other thoughts about toxic chemicals that can waft through wildfire in areas like dioxins, asbestos, lead, and cyanide, where I’d live in the future, and random worries.

The next idea that hitchhiked into my mind was: What if the sign in my life says “ANYTHING?”

I decided to pick up this hitchhiker and have a long conversation about what I truly want and need, in detail, now and into the future, and help myself make a sign that says “EVERYTHING.”

This was not an easy conversation. It took some reflecting. I came up with this sign:

Safe, rental/stay long term with kind people of integrity who like my adorable small black Maltese-mix dog, who don’t own the property, or, if they do, are flexible and who I feel comfortable around and not just as a lodger but using the entire facilities,

Within 25 miles of my daughter, her fiancé and grandson. In a place that is aesthetically pleasing, with good access to nature. Bonus if near body of water. This or something better according to the Creator’s generous will.

After writing my EVERYTHING visualization, I found my eighth stay with a person who is flexible and not the owner. I was pretty comfortable, as was my dog Rumi, receiving much cuddling.

The house had an outer landscape of walls and steps of large tiles with creative designs.

But nine is a lucky number. My ninth temporary abode is in Oceanside! A friendly woman named Patty warmly invited me to stay by myself in the family’s furnished five-wheeler trailer. Close to the Pacific; far from my daughter. But the sea sounds like a deep breath after holding mine more or less for six weeks since smoke inhalation. Ultimately, within a little everything is a BIG SOMETHING, maybe as big as an ocean.

Claudia S. Gold is a semi-retired clinical social worker.