Shared Ground
Shared Ground is a podcast that explores resilience & grit, generosity & kindness. We start with true stories of kindness and support during and after the 2025 LA wildfires.
Shared Ground
Episode 13: Coffee, Kindness, and the Long Haul with Jon Seidman
When disaster strikes, who shows up? And who keeps showing up after the headlines fade?
In this episode of Shared Ground, Venice resident Jon Seidman joins Allan and Sean to talk about the quiet, enduring work of recovery after the Los Angeles fires.
We decided to release this on the 6-month anniversary of the January fires - listen to Jon's thoughts about how and when to lean in to understand why.
Jon didn’t just check in. He showed up. With his characteristic care and understated generosity, he offered not only a place to stay but something more lasting: a morning ritual built around exceptional coffee. As a passionate home roaster, John brought beans, brewing gear, and a simple gesture that reshaped Sean’s mornings. Together they made coffee, watched the moon set, and began to rebuild a sense of rhythm amid the rubble. (read more on Sean's substack: "Don't Drink Shitty Coffee")
But this story is not just about coffee.
Jon reflects on the emotional timeline of crisis. He talks about the surge of immediate support, the sudden quiet that follows, and the need to stay present long after the moment has passed. He shares insights from his time living in remote Costa Rica, where interdependence was not a value but a way of life. His reflections offer a contrast to how many communities approach care and crisis today.
This episode explores:
- How months 4 after a crisis may be harder than month 1...and why now would be a good time to reach out to anyone you know affected by the January fires
- How micro rituals can ground us during displacement
- What mutual aid looks like when it is quiet and real
- Why asking good questions matters more than giving advice
If you have ever wondered how to show up well for someone in pain—or how to let others show up for you—this conversation will stay with you.
Shared Ground is produced by Sean Knierim and Allan Marks. Thanks to Cory Grabow, Kara Poltor, Corey Walles (from The Recording Studio) for your support in launching this effort.
For more stories of resilience & rebuilding, kindness & generosity: visit shared-ground.com and subscribe to Sean's substack. We invite you to share your own stories of resilience at the Shared Ground website - whether in response to the January fires in LA or other situations.
Follow us at seanknierim.substack.com, Instagram, or wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).
T oday we have Jon Seidman joining us, someone who's been important to my family and to us as friends. Jon, welcome, Thanks for joining us today. Thank you, Alan. Thank you.
Jon Seidman:Sean, and how do you pronounce your last name again, because I never knew this? Kniehrim K'nearum, Knierim. Perfect, all right, good.
Allan Marks:Now you've got it right, all right, great, you could spell it. I could probably E-I-I-E, no one knows, I'm an EI, so don't worry about it. Yeah, yeah, that's good.
Sean Knierim:So, Jon, as we're talking about this idea of resilience, we're and in response to these fires, we saw communities really rise up in overwhelming ways with moments of generosity, of kindness, without a lot of expectation for reciprocity, and so we're inviting in people that are part of that and we'll talk about some of the things you did with us. But, just in general, as you're thinking of, you and your family live here in Venice. What was it like for you as these fires were whipping up? Can you remember back to those days in early January and share with us what you remember feeling and seeing?
Jon Seidman:Yeah, absolutely. It was fascinating in the sense that we didn't know whether to pack and go, because we were within a few miles of where the fires were, or to sit in front of the TV and just watch this disaster unfold down the street. I guess there was no preparation for it, if you will. There was no, it was just kind of out of the blue. And you know what can I do? Who's affected, what's what's? You know how do I prepare my family myself?
Jon Seidman:For me, it was one of those moments where, you know, you harken back to like moments of living in modern society where 9-11 happens right and you're like you're blown away by the moment, and then you all of a sudden get into these, like now I got to do something kind of thing, and then when COVID, when everything shuts down, like you know, these are these, these sentinel moments that have happened, that we've kind of been brought into this trauma world of expectation.
Jon Seidman:And I guess, as things have unfolded over the past 25 years from 9-11 to now and I mean again we grew up. You know we're all roughly the same age in this really peaceful period of time, like when we were younger, you know we were worried about things like quicksand and things like that and guys in white vans. You know these were the weird urban legends. And as it switched into all of a sudden, these real traumatic moments that were living through these historical pieces, that for me this was that moment I kind of got into this. All right, fight or flight, you know, I got to like, move in, get, make sure my family's OK, then make sure my friends are OK and the people that I know in that space, because I have something to offer and what I had at the time was I had space for people to put things or live or whatever they needed.
Sean Knierim:I wanted to be, you know, part of that solution and I remember we just had a conversation with my wife, Nina, in the very first podcast that we talked about, and she and I were discussing how many people reached out to us, how hard it was to accept help, how impossible it was to answer what do you need? And when you reached out to us, you were pretty specific about this. I don't know if you remember I'm trying to remember about the exact outreach but for some reason I actually took yours up Like right away, right, because you offered me space and you offered some other stuff and we didn't know each other really well prior to this.
Allan Marks:I feel like you're a good friend in my life, but it came out of the last four months Pause for a second on that, though, because, sean, there's a lot of people in your life you didn't know as well before this fire and before the experience. It's not that you've lost old friends, but you've picked up some new ones that are surprisingly important in your life. I'm not sure that's. I think it's worth pausing and noting that.
Sean Knierim:And it was a surprising experience and I don't know if I would have guessed who those people were. There were some. So on January 5th, if you asked who's going to show up and who's going to really be there for you, I would have listed some. Not all of them would have made it, um, but Jon, you and your wife Kay are people that I. I had been on that list and you were part of a few pretty important moments, so maybe we can talk through a few of those moments. So we lived in 10 different places within the first month and a half of this right, and one morning you reached out to me and you asked what kind of coffee was I drinking? And do you remember that morning and how I responded and what you did?
Jon Seidman:I do, I do, and I'll start it off, and it's not an altruistic thing. I'm a coffee snob, yeah, and let's start only with coffee. No, no, I'm, trust me, I'm. I'm a, I am a, a born, uh, diy-er. Like, if there's a way. Like my latest thing is is making fermented soda, like that's my new hobby right now. So I'm doing coffee and soda and a bunch of other vices.
Allan Marks:When you say making coffee too, you're not just talking about, like you know, opening up a can.
Jon Seidman:No, no, I source the beans from people that actually grow the beans in specific regions and specific types of beans. Green, I get them and then I actually roast them to very specific temperatures, you know. But I'm not like I'm not weighing the preparation. I'm very, you know, casual in the preparation of it, but I'm really particular about what I drink. I'm very, you know, casual in the preparation of it, but I'm really particular about what I drink.
Jon Seidman:And I knew that everything was gone for you. I mean everything, like there was nothing left of your life. And you weren't the only person in my world that this happened to, there were several others, and for me I was like all right. So if I were in this situation, what would be important to me? And it would probably be getting back into some kind of routine, you know, and what can I do? That's nice that nobody else is really thinking of, you know. I mean you don't need. You kept saying I don't need more clothes, I don't have enough clothes, we've got all the clothes we need. And I'm like, cool, I don't. Our sizes are very different, so I can't really help you that much. But coffee was a very easy thing and then I actually bought you the proper drip, because I knew that you're going to be moving around a lot, so you wouldn't want a coffee maker, and so I bought the right drip, and I think I even brought over a grinder too, so you had the kit ready to go and you had proper coffee.
Sean Knierim:And then you came in and you're like Sean, I'm going to show you how to make it, so you do it correctly. So he sat and he, Alan, he, he poured the perfect glass of coffee through this thing, which I never once replicated in the four weeks.
Allan Marks:I can show you again. But he came over and he did it.
Sean Knierim:You got to prime the ground first, to wait 30 seconds, and so every morning, cause this was a time when I was waking up at four, 30 or five o'clock in the morning every day. I wasn't getting enough sleep, I was worn down and I was able to make this coffee and go to the roof of the place we were staying at and watch the moon go down and the sun come up, drinking coffee. And the coffee was important, but it was always knowing that it came from someone who cared enough about us. It made that coffee and we'll put a picture up on the website you shared that picture, the website you shared that picture.
Allan Marks:I remember when it happened, Jon. You may not know this, but I pinged you to see if you're okay or something, and you sent me a text with the picture. Just no people in it, just the coffee on the roof with the moon and the ocean in the background, and it was sort of a. You know, it's interesting when you think of the horrors, that not just that you've just gone through with this, people were still going through with that and for you to take the moment you know, literally the cafe pause, right, really take that moment to stop and breathe.
Sean Knierim:That was something that was, I think, pretty helpful for you and that moment was really important for like each of the days and I think I shared with both of you guys a few of these I was doing video updates each day for my family back home Cause I was trying to tell my family coordinate everything through my sister and brother Please don't call me every day asking me, because I don't have space for this so I was sharing these video updates and that day and I love that you're wearing a Patagonia hat in here I was wearing a Patagonia jacket because I just went into Patty the day before and they took care of me and I was sobbing at Patagonia because the coat that took care of me for years I lost.
Sean Knierim:So I was sitting up there like product placement video to family, but it was with the coffee and I talked about that with people back home to let them know that I was being taken care of. So it was important. It didn't just help me, it helped everybody in my family know that folks were showing up to care for us.
Jon Seidman:Well, it's also something interesting that that happened. One of the most important things that I've noticed as I've gotten older is the like. It's something I always ask people that I care about. You know, like, like, you know, because I'm like one of those guys when things are tight and the world kind of sucks, I have a monkey brain at three o'clock in the morning, you know, and if, like, something wakes me up, I'm there. For you know, I'm up like and, and so you know you told me, every single day, no matter what I do, I'm up at four o'clock in the morning and I'm call me, you know, because there's a chance I might be up. So for me, like, that check-in is always hey man, how are you sleeping? Like? You know. Like, are you getting to sleep, are you getting enough sleep? Because it's kind of the barometer that I've been accustomed to to check in my own life If I'm sleeping well, then I think things are in a calm place.
Allan Marks:Let me ask you a question though, Jon, because what I know of you right is you're a pretty intellectual guy. You're in your brain, you're thinking about those coffee grounds in innate detail. For you, does caring come from a place of thought, or is it just automatic? Or is it an emotional drive?
Jon Seidman:Kindness probably I don't ever think about. It's not ever. I'm not a saint by any means and I'm not, you know I face imposter syndrome like everybody else. The reality of it is I don't put ideals forward in my mind and like kind of think about a chessboard or anything like that. It's just kind of like the.
Jon Seidman:There's a few philosophies that I live by, and one of them is treat people the way you want to be treated Like. Show up for somebody the way you want to be shown up for. I mean, that's really important and there are people in my life that have shown up for me and it's not the people you expect. It's my mechanic, my car mechanic, who I adore, I love to death, and I hang out with him and he doesn't let me pay half the time because we've become friends and he's watched my kids grow up and the whole thing. My gardener, who is the you know, a good friend of mine, who on a Sunday when I needed a refrigerator move I knew he had a pickup I was willing to pay him. He's like no, I'd rather just hang out with you. And so we had a drive to go pick up a washing machine or a dryer somewhere and down here at a Best Buy somewhere, and he just gave me his Sunday, didn't want any money, didn't want anything, but it's just because we hang out. You know, I guess for me it's just this innate feeling of just treating everybody the exact same. I don't care, you know, if you're Alan Marks and you're Sean, and you know whoever is the person sitting across the table from me, they're just as important on this planet as I am.
Jon Seidman:And the second thing is, you know, it's kind of a morbid feeling, but we're all going to die Like ultimately feeling, but we're all going to die, like like ultimately, by definition of morbid feeling it is. I mean, we're all going to die at some point. And what I don't want is a life of regret in any way, shape or form, like that's that. That to me is probably the worst thing that could ever happen is to like go through my life with regret and like without the feeling that, like Bill Murray has kind of like define this, this genre of living for me, you, me, and I love the way that he shows up and the way he is in the world and how we you know there's a few.
Jon Seidman:I'm a bit more, I guess, maybe more detail oriented in life. But so, to answer your question, it's an innate feeling that there's no prime or reason to it. It's just important to me to treat everybody this way. It's your way of being human, it's my way of being human. I, that's my way of being human. I don't know any other way. And people in my life have given me so much and I've never been able to give them anything in return, you know, except the experience of being together.
Sean Knierim:Do they refuse to accept things, or is it just impossible to figure out what to give to them?
Jon Seidman:No, I think I've learned to just say thank you.
Sean Knierim:When somebody's being nice, you know when somebody wants to do it. I think I've learned to just say thank you. When somebody's being nice, you know. When somebody wants to do it. I think I've learned to just say thank you, and we've talked about that in in a prior episode, about how many people when you try and thank them at least during the last few months, I would hear it was nothing. It's the least I can do, don't worry about it. And it's like well, but you're invalidating. Are you invalidating my gratitude? It's like just say, just say you're invalidating. Are you invalidating my gratitude? It's like just say you're welcome, because each time I heard that, I remember, at least when I was in the moment.
Allan Marks:There's something else you heard from a lot of people that you shared with me. When you would thank people for things that they would say we got you.
Sean Knierim:Yeah, we got you was one of the things I heard that we heard that a lot as you reflect on what you saw in the LA community. Everyone kind of came together Anything that surprised you of what you saw here. I mean, you've been a longtime resident of Los Angeles, right, Were you surprised at how the community came together in the last few months?
Jon Seidman:To me, I think it's actually, you know, when it's not about the now or even the immediate after. I'm way more like when something happens, like obviously I want to take care of it in the moment, but I think where my specialty is is coming in later and being like hey, you know like this happened. You know how are you six months later Like what's going on? You know, are you sleeping? Okay, you know, is there? Is there anything I can help you with now? Because I knew that you were going to get inundated with people that wanted to help and all kinds of things that they could offer. I had material things that I could offer, which was space and a guest house that was sitting empty.
Sean Knierim:Which we took you up on. We stored as like. For a brief moment, to quote Sean Penn, we were briefly liberated from the tyranny of possessions. I had three and a half Subarus, Subaru worth of stuff, two of which ended up getting stored in your place, and we then tried to steal some of your wife's clothing when we brought the stuff back. But that was really important. But say more about the long haul.
Jon Seidman:Well, I mean, the moment is easy, you know, the moment's really easy to get. It's almost reflexive. Of course, it's like, you know, you're caught up in the emotion of it and you know it's that instant rush of almost social media being. You know, I always used to put this tag when I was really active on social media, which I never really was. But you know my fake Instagram life, because you're catching these snapshots of very unrealistic pieces of it.
Jon Seidman:What I saw and where I feel is it's now it's three, four, six months after this. This upheaval is where people are really going to need the support to like, you know, where it's not sexy anymore, it's not fun to like, hey, I'm helping this guy with the fire stuff. You know it's like. You know, now it's like the sharks are moving in and the predators are coming in and it's you know, it's the rebuild, and this is where all the confusion and the anger and the bad energy is really going to come into play. But the people, the victims that you know, are still going to have all this pent up like non-resoluted emotion.
Sean Knierim:And I think there's another piece too, that there's a lot of activity that's happening for those that have to rebuild, for those of us that are renting, that might need to go find another place, but there's also a quietude. All of a sudden it gets quiet. You've got a Wednesday night sitting at home and nothing to do, and for me, if I'm moving, I know how to deal with crisis, I know how to react and respond. I don't know how to sit quietly with my own emotions, and that's where I think, having trusted friends that can show up for you, do you think you?
Allan Marks:would have had that lesson if it weren't for the fire. If it weren't for the fire, would you have realized that I knew?
Sean Knierim:this lesson for a long, long time. What's interesting? I mean? In fact, in some ways, I've spent the last 10 years actively working to get my brain out of crisis mode and slow down and get to homeostasis, as some in the performance community would say right, and when this happened I was able to lock back in. I have things to take care of. I got to move. I know I need and this is funny when you're thinking action. I know I need to sleep, eat, nutrition. Can I get some physical activity? Can I be around community. I know the things that are required to take care of myself, but I can get active in doing those things to more quickly or kind of ease back in to quiet reflection it's scary.
Allan Marks:I want to blow that up for a second. Maybe each of you think of it, certainly, Jon, your thoughts, because what, Jon, you just described is a very personal process. And we look at community, think community resilience, right. There's often like this frenzy of apparent action where people are trying to rebuild quickly because everybody wants to go back to the way it was, which is, of course, not possible. But you're going to go back to something and what you're going to go back to will either have some of the same vulnerabilities or it will be better. In some ways. It will certainly be different, and not all of that frenzied activity that people are going through at the beginning of it result in the better solution. Sometimes activity that people are going through at the beginning of it result in the better solution, sometimes a process that would allow for more of a pause and a collective consultation, if you will, which we just don't build into the system might be more efficacious.
Jon Seidman:I don't know if you've got a sense of it's funny you brought that up because I parallel it with my own life in a sense, where you, you know, I'm 55. So you know, I'm in the throes of middle age, if you will, or whatever you want to call it. The next chapter is I have two kids, one going to college this fall, another who's going to be a senior in college, and so we're looking, you know, down the barrel of an empty nest and kind of this idea of all this space and time that happened where my mind share was so much of my kids and raising my kids and being a parent and making sure that I was doing everything, right or wrong, or letting them fail or not letting them fail, or whatever the mode was of the day.
Sean Knierim:And enjoying a lot of that time and being defined by that's what.
Allan Marks:I want to do.
Jon Seidman:I've seen you as a father and learning that hard lesson of when to step back and allow the space or allow the risk and understand, when you have two kids, that they're completely different animals between the two of them, and there's no, I can't raise one the same way I'm raising the other. They're just different people, you know. And switching from parent to coach because that's where I'm at now with my relationship with these kids and so what you're saying is taking that pause, and I've taken a pause in life, if you will, for a little bit, emotionally, kind of like.
Jon Seidman:I lived a very busy life before and I always, growing up, I was like, wow, if you travel for work, you're successful, like that was a definition of success to me. It wasn't a monetary number that sounds painfully familiar, but it was like if you travel for work, you are successful, that's it, that's the ultimate. And you know, I lived for so many years in a very busy life of like, of filling my time and having all of these things, and then all of a sudden, life slowed down for me, and professionally too, and so that pause that I had in my being professionally and as a parent mimics exactly what you just described, where I'm able to like regroup and kind of, you know, morph into, hopefully, the next chapter of the person that I like, want to grow, actually take time to workshop and think tank the next phase, instead of immediately jumping into building the same again or the new again, or the new same again or whatever they're doing. It would have lasting benefits throughout time. But again, time is money.
Allan Marks:Now there's also the. I remember during COVID when we were all sort of stopped right. I remember actually in our neighborhood a lot of people left and so it was eerily quiet and we would go outside and walk the dog and there were birds, there were no cars, the city sounds were all different too.
Sean Knierim:What kind of dog are you walking to paint the picture for the reader?
Allan Marks:Paint the picture, that was our poodle, a poodle, okay, she was sweet, she was very sweet. A sweet poodle, yeah, sweet and smart. She sadly passed away about a year and a half ago but yeah, but she, yeah, we'd be walking and there was more time. I mean it was terrible, I think, for our daughter to have to miss a year or two of high school by learning remotely. But it was a wonderful surprise that we had family dinners with our teenager every night almost for two years, which is kind of remarkable.
Allan Marks:But when we came out of COVID's isolation and all that vaccines and businesses reopened and things I don't know they went back to normal, but they went back to something closer to normal. There was, people had forgotten how to deal with each other. They'd forgotten basic social skills how to drive, how to say thank you, how to say you're welcome, right? What is this public space? Again, there's other people in it. All of a sudden, I wonder what kind of lessons, coming back from a natural disaster like uh, like the fires that we've seen, both in in in the west side, in the palestinians, but also in uh, the eden canyon fire in uh, with a very different community, with those also profoundly affected, with thousands of homes lost in altadena. I'm wondering what you think the new normal would be after a community, even a city of this size, goes through that kind of a collective trauma.
Sean Knierim:I think I've watched teenage kids in Zoom school for the last few months who are going to be returning to an in-person they're calling it Pali South at the Sears building in Santa Monica and they were able to come together in kind of the Zoom rules. They all fit back into that rhythm and routine, including the teachers did a remarkable job coming back. But there weren't pods the way they were before. You weren't quarantined, so they were able to kind of move in and among and make the best. This was kind of the COVID experience that they wished they had. Right Like my daughter and her friends were able to be together, watching them come back into a building is going to be really interesting. Hearing the experience of my daughter's friends who moved quickly to other schools and them being the outlier, them being the other in a school that had just come from something and they're trying to integrate themselves into a rhythm of high school that had been there for a while.
Sean Knierim:It's hard to be different in high school unless you're actively trying to be different, and I'm thinking of the wider community. Now when you go to the restaurant, the coffee shop, the grocery store, many of us are still people who lost homes and are bringing those bags back to different refrigerators from the ones that melted wherever they used to be. But at what point do you acknowledge that this happened to you and it's different for different people. Like my son wanted us to stop talking about the fires. Two weeks after the fire, she goes, dad, we gotta stop. We gotta stop asking for stuff, and for me it's still such a real present thing. It's hard for me. I find myself it's hard to have a conversation without mentioning yeah, this just came through, um, it also.
Jon Seidman:I mean sorry to interrupt, but the idea that like as the traditional man of the house, right, you know, I mean, I know your wife's a badass, you know I'm not a traditional man yet Correct. You've seen my house, but we have a role, yeah, and, and, and, and. No matter what we do, you know as, as, as the father, the dad, the male you want to fix. You know what I mean, and so you through the ultimate holy shit moment. You know what I mean. We're swearing in this podcast.
Sean Knierim:We just made that decision. Oh, absolutely.
Allan Marks:But I want to pause on that for a second, because what's being? It's not so much that the stereotypical dad couldn't fix the problem, it's that the stereotypical dad puts it on himself to believe that that's his role, whether anybody else in the family agrees with that or not. Right, and therefore feels bad. Maybe, sean I don't know if that you'd failed to fix it, even though maybe the expectation was frankly not there and the desire may not have been there either, for you to try to play that.
Sean Knierim:Yeah, I have a story and it's interesting to me too, having these conversations where we want to pull out and think about the wider community and, Jon, we want to hear about your time in other countries working with different communities. But I'm still looking through straws on the experience that I'm in right now. Like I remember the fourth day in a row I woke up super early in the morning before I got to the coffee you shared with us. It was five days in a row we lost lease offers where we thought we had a house, a replacement house For whatever reason. Our new rental because we were in our. This was our ninth rental place for collectively, for our family, and we didn't know if we were going to get the one.
Sean Knierim:That day we were excited to offer way more money than I ever thought I would offer for rent for a place with no dishwasher, a crappy range. I would not be able to bake, bake my bread. There's no someone living upstairs that they wouldn't introduce us to before sign. And I remember and I was like I am failing at getting my family shelter, I am failing, and nina stopped me and this was like like I came crying into the bedroom right and she's like sean, it's first of all, it's not you, it's us, which was a very kind thing to say, even though I didn't believe her, like deep down, right To the point you just made.
Sean Knierim:Jon and both of us at that moment, I mean, this is how we were thinking it through. It's like we're going to have to give this over to God. We're going to have to let God, we're going to have to trust. And it was later that day, that was the next day after we moved to another place, that we walked in and a friend offered us the place that we get to be in now. But it was profoundly unsettling not to be able to provide that stability to a family, like in feeling the responsibility.
Allan Marks:But then how did it feel when you finally let go and said oh did you, I'm going to trust it to.
Sean Knierim:God or whatever. So it let me take a breath. It let me. We have someone we're going to talk to here, dan Dworkis, who works with a lot of first responders. He described it.
Sean Knierim:The best I've heard so far is that inside of many of us there's just a pool, a well of emotions, yeah, and there's all kinds of emotions in there and I'm hoping there's like joy and euphoria or somewhere, but I think they have a higher specific gravity and have dropped. But it's not hard for something. Anything that's added will make it overflow, and so these things were. So we were able to take a breath and we say it when we're focused. My wife and I say three prayers together every single morning, which has been a beautiful ritual that we've started in the last seven years, and I was able to take a breath. I was able to feel a little bit more at ease, a little bit not under control, but more able to surf the nutty world that we were facing, and it let me be a better father to my kids when I walked downstairs and they woke up. So I was able to take that breath.
Allan Marks:Yeah, and there's a connection between being better for yourself and being better, being more available and more responsible for others.
Sean Knierim:Yeah, the metaphor really works of you have to put your own air mask on before you take care of the person next to you and get theirs on. Yeah, I agree with that.
Allan Marks:Which is an analogy that brings you back to travel for a second, because, Jon, you've lived overseas as well. Do other countries or societies that you've lived in do a better job of this?
Jon Seidman:I'll say that it's more innate in their being than it is here. I lived in throughout the 90s for 11 years, in the most remote area of Costa Rica and you know, prior to 1993, 94, there was a six-month road. So I lived in a community that was completely isolated in the southern zone and the Osa Peninsula, on the bottom half of it, where if you wanted to get there in the rainy season you had to either fly or take a bus to a town across a gulf and then take an hour long ferry ride or fly in. You know if the weather was good enough to fly in, because the roads were completely knocked out because of the bridges and the rain Disasters were a dime a dozen. You know what I mean. Like you know whether it was like a child getting bit by a Fertilance. You know a Viper and the community having to come together to get her to where she needs to be because we're so remote to come together to get her to where she needs to be because we're so remote to. You know, two and a half weeks of solid downpour and every bridge, every road is washed out. You know and you know there's no drinking water, there's no food really available and everybody is broke to begin with. So what I noticed was, you know, everybody just kind of like nobody, stuck to their own beings back then. There I can't speak for what it's like now because they have TV and phones and all the other things and electricity, but back then it was this incredible, like we were all shared experience of going through something and it was. It was not just community was communal, it was communal. It was communal, it was communal and it was. It was people checking on each other because that's what you had to do.
Jon Seidman:And yeah, so, you know, living, living that remotely prior has trained me, I guess, in some way, shape or form, to understand. You know, an hour or two hours away from where you are, you know you have to deal with it. Like I've had my leg split open from. You know, a surfboard accident. I pulled a good friend of mine out of the water who died. You know he drowned and you know there was a group of us who were all surfing together and he's gone and his board sticking straight up. Yeah, yeah, but I mean it was all part of the experience. I can't, you know, can't go back on it. You learn how to deal very quickly in the moment. There's no, there's no room for error, there's no stopping to think about the situation that you have to live on instinct and you have to be able to react in this in the moment, because these are life or death situations, and then you have to move forward with your decision and stay completely, you know, to that point.
Sean Knierim:Can I let me pull out something that you said a little bit earlier in that flow of you have to decide to be calm, and then you talked a lot about learning how to work within these moments of crisis. It's something that you go through and you learn from. Did you always have the ability to decide to be calm? Can anyone decide to be calm, or is that something that you learn? Is it something that you have innately? Can you talk a little bit about?
Jon Seidman:that no-transcript, something that is there more than it's something you learn, because it's a reaction, it's, it's an instinct, it's a you know it's, it's a, it's, it's a sense that you have. I don't think it's something that you can kind of pull out of train yourself I, I don't know.
Allan Marks:I mean let me. But let me make a distinction, because you're using the word calm and I'm not sure that's the word that you're just. What you're describing it's equanimity, it it's balance, it's clarity and it's that perspective allows you not to rush or hurry in any kind of a panic. You're able to modulate. It's not a numbness, it's not a slowness either.
Allan Marks:No, but it's what you need to do in a way which is very clear and maybe methodical, maybe paced, but it's what the situation demands, without histrionics getting in the way. Yes, and it's also the it's flow.
Jon Seidman:It's higher, it's flow.
Allan Marks:It's not exactly, it's the higher state of being and I'll give you an example. It's Kareem coming in with this guy hook and in his own brain it takes three minutes and the rest of us watch it happen in two seconds, correct, yeah?
Jon Seidman:You know, or it's of being that, it's just. I don't care what he's saying, it's the flow that I'm watching, that I'm completely mesmerized by how somebody can be so comfortable in that moment. And and for me, you know, I've been in some very traumatic experiences. So I don't know if I ever told you, but one experience I had was I was, I was flying from, I flew from LA to New York, new York and I was flying to Buenos Aires. And it was this was two months, three months after 9-11. And I was filming my first TV show, right, and so we're filming magicians in Buenos Aires.
Jon Seidman:And so the flight from LA to New York got delayed because of mechanical problems on the plane, but it was the same plane that was going to Buenos Aires. We get stuck in New York, spend the night in New York, I'm from New York. The next day I get up, get to the airport, get on my plane and I'm sitting in the emergency row seat. I had been in a plane crash years earlier with my wife in Panama, and so I always traveled with this little thing of Valium, right, just in case. I never took it back then. You're just having it itself with me, that's all I needed.
Jon Seidman:I needed to know that it was in the front pocket and I still have the same exact container from 1996 or whenever it was, or 98, 99, whenever we got in our plane crash and I got my first prescription for this stuff and I travel with it still to this day and it's old Valium too, Valiumless-less yes.
Jon Seidman:It still works, I think, regardless. We're on this plane, we're flying over the Caribbean and it's one of those old double-decker planes 757, 47., 47, yeah, yeah, old though and all of a sudden the cabin fills with smoke. Right, and this is like. I've already been in a plane crash. This is my worst nightmare. This is it Like I'm living.
Jon Seidman:It Captain comes on, says guys, we have an emergency, we have to dump the fuel. We're going to fly, you know, 100 feet over the ocean. We're going to prepare the cabin for an emergency water landing. Okay, I'm like, oh my Lord, you're losing it. You know, like, but I immediately took five Valium, five, five. But you're a big guy, big guy, but regardless, that's a lot. Whatever it did, it centered up and was working with the flight attendant on the other side, because our flight attendant was completely lost and scared. People were crying, kids. We had to move people, move baggage. This woman could not open the door. It was all of those things, yeah, and as intense as it was, and the planes filled with smoke and the wings are opening up and all the fuel's pouring out into the Caribbean, and now we're 100 feet over the ocean, but you can smell probably.
Allan Marks:Oh yeah, you totally smell that when that much food is being dumped.
Jon Seidman:We were going. I don't know, I remember the smell of people.
Allan Marks:It was the pheromones of people.
Jon Seidman:That was like. I remember how I smell. That's funny. You say that because I went into flow, I went into this higher flow. In that moment, this calmness came over me, I was completely at peace. And you know, the captain's talking us through this. He's like, hey, we're, you know we're gonna go into the ocean and did it all this time, and you know, and finally everything's cleared up and with about four minutes left, I sit down in my seat and I'm taking the position that we're supposed to be taking and there's a guy next to me and two people, two men that we put in the seats in front of us, and and there's a phone in the front.
Jon Seidman:You know, they all had those phones I grab the phone and I swipe my credit card and I'd call my wife Like the worst thing I possibly could have done. She answers the phone and she's like what, what? What? You know, she knows. Like she immediately, like we were in tune, like we're pretty well synced together and she knew something was wrong, because she knew I was on a plane flying. And I'm like honey, I don't know what's going to happen, but we're about to go into the ocean. I just want you to know I love you. And I told her that and I hung up this call Worst thing I probably could have done ever.
Jon Seidman:Yeah now she's really, really worried. Yeah Well, she calls my sister. My sister and her call American Airlines get moved right up the food chain because they know this is happening and they're like you know, how do you know this information? So they talk them through what's happening. We ended up hobbling into Puerto Rico so and just, we didn't make a water. We did not make the water you would have known if we made a water but we made it into puerto rico.
Jon Seidman:But where I'm going with this is it's that, it's that, it's that flow of being in the moment, like there were other people that were panicking and freaking out and and I did not go there. I went the exact opposite direction, like, okay, I have something to do, these people need help and I, you know, I, I'm in a position where I can help them and and and I need to, you know, go into this mode and I just went. I don't, I didn't think about anything, I didn't anticipate, I didn't, there was no thought process, everything was on full high flow.
Sean Knierim:So as we kind of transition back to Los Angeles and kind of is coming towards the conclusion of this conversation, that's, in the moment of crisis, you really, I think, astutely pointed to the fact we're moving into a different phase of the crisis down here in Los Angeles, where this is the long slog. How do we get into flow, or community flow or individual? I don't even know if it's flow, but what is it that's going to help enable this continued resiliency of community during this long? What do you think we need in order to be there for each other over the next month? Any ideas? It's?
Jon Seidman:such a kooky environment right now. To begin with that, even without the juxtaposition, so maybe we're still in crisis. We are. I mean, I think there's a lot of people that would say we are in crisis. And you know, there was a housing crisis and an affordability crisis in Los Angeles way before the fires. The fires didn't do any, you know. They didn't make it easier. You know they literally displaced, you know, a hundred thousand people who were living in homes, who could afford them, or barely afford them, whatever the circumstances were, and now they're homeless. Really, at the end of the day. Yeah, I don't know if I give it enough thought. I think it's just going to be individuals who step up and do things. I mean, I actually like, I think there's a lot of potential for heroes to come out of this, but I don't know how we kind of move ourselves. I don't know how we kind of move ourselves. I mean, I'm just hoping that there's some integrity in the way things are kind of divided up.
Sean Knierim:next, and I don't have a lot of faith in that. So I think you did offer us something towards the beginning of this conversation about reaching out to people you know and asking them how they're doing, asking them but in a really specific way How'd you sleep last night? So not just how you're doing, which is kind of sometimes difficult to answer if you don't know how you're doing, but then to provide the specificity how are you sleeping, how are you doing Like, have you connected with friends? So I think that offer of friendship whether or not they're going to take you up on it, I think is a really powerful takeaway for anyone listening to this and something that could really be helpful to someone, I think it's important to do that with just, I mean, and with strangers too.
Allan Marks:It's this idea of thinking of community building as the new friendships you talked about before, yeah, the extended ones, I mean that's, we are all in this together. Yes, and we need to be, Jon, thank you so much for taking the time to get together with us.
Sean Knierim:I hope I provided some sort of entertainment and you know voice in the conversation. You've certainly provided friendship and support to people around you. You did to my family, I think, for those listening here, they're definitely going to take some wisdom from these and some enjoyment from the stories you shared with us. So thank you, and as we're moving through these episodes, you know we thank you for joining us to listen to this conversation that Alan and I just had with Jon. We hope you keep tuning in as we explore different ways that resilience is exposing itself around this town and different ideas for how we might be able to strengthen that resilience and be there for each other. This has been Shared Ground. I'm Allan Marks, thank you, and I'm Sean Knierim, and we're really grateful to be here with y'all. Thanks very much, thank you. This has been another episode of Shared Ground, a podcast about resilience and community.
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Sean Knierim:That's shared-ground. com.