It’s a Monday night in Pacific Palisades and I’m not supposed to be here.

I step out of the car to take it in: the fragrant grass, the canopy of leaves, vibrant branches of ancient trees entwined like a circle of elephants.

I reach through the rear window to pick up the dish. Then I reluctantly step forward into darkness.

My expectations were shallow when I walked into the weekly Rustic Canyon potluck on the night I first attended. Mismatched dishes of various size crowded the surface of the old pine picnic table, each one adorned with homemade signs. Avocado rolls… cornbread casserole… sweet potato hash… red miso rice…

I slid my Gelson’s Supermarket tuna salad next to a gorgeous homemade tomato pie – its vibrant red popping like embers against the faded yellow of the table – and frowned. I’d been instructed to spend no more than twenty dollars at the deli. In a vexing break with personal tradition, I’d done what I was told. After all, I was just a hired hand.

A nanny to four children at the cul-de-sac on Greentree, these potluck dinners were part of my job. Each Monday night, we’d jump into my Jeep and tear down Latimer Road. I’d hardly cut the engine before the kids would bolt from the open back seat and sprint toward Uplifters Ranch. The hidden vale seemed to float between the surrounding mountain ranges.

The first few times I stayed on the fringe. Though barely nineteen, I’d already embarked on a lifelong journey to manage my antisocial personality. A neurodivergent whose diagnosis was only a matter of years away, I didn’t mind being an outsider. Pacific Palisades was a place for families and creatives and people full of volume. Rustic Canyon’s potlucks wove a technicolor dream quilt of diverse flavors and relationships. For once, I knew better than to trespass. But the kids wore me down.

They got me to play. Then got me to stay. Through their example, I tested my balance. Next to their seats, I found my space. For theirs was a trust I knew how to keep. Deceit had no voice in my language with them, nor our dinnermates by extension. So it was there I learned the practice of fellowship. Not masking or mimicking, but conversing. Communing. Giving and receiving.

At potlucks in the canyon with my feisty fosterlings: This is where my axis made its shift. Though I’d always understood I was different, I’d started to think that I was useless. My brackish disposition seemed to serve no purpose, and perhaps on its own this was true. But in that community, my flavor founds its footing.

Sweet, sour, bitter, salt – the Monday night gatherings achieved a perfect balance. Weeks into months and months into years, I evolved from outsider to contributor. A quirky dish on a cerebral tablescape and an earnest voice raised in unison, “With this offering, I support your existence.” It wasn’t just the potluck prayer but the Palisades ethos – one that extended beyond the rustic supper club.

Similar words were painted on the sidewalk next to Terri’s Cafe in the village. Terri’s was owned and operated by a group of local waitresses who banded together to buy the cafe after its eponymous founder retired. It had a small dessert fridge where they kept the beloved mixed berry cobbler. Though it was quick to sell out, the staff always reserved a slice for me and my eldest charge to share.

And, over time, the recipe.

I was never a very good baker. Rules are too stringent and measurements too strict. But with my Gelson’s stipend – and the help of eight little hands – I managed to forge my own tithe. It didn’t yield the most appealing visual presentation, nor was it particularly sweet. Neither were prerequisites for a potluck offering.

I felt a detached elation the first night I set it on the table. Not quite happy, not quite sad, but buoyant between the two. This was my favorite feeling. It wasn’t something I could ordinarily access, at least not without deviant means. A determined swimmer dragging an apathetic anchor – such was my struggle with emotion. Acting out was like finding an inflatable raft, and recently I’d started to experiment.

Disciplined deviance is how I described it. Controlled acts of misconduct designed to head off larger transgressions, but not in the Palisades. Though I would go on to lengthen my psychological leash, chasing chaos across most of Los Angeles, it never extended west of Amalfi Drive. This wasn’t a choice but a check. A boundary I don’t remember setting, but nonetheless maintained.

I suspect this was my way of protecting it, selfishly preserving the oceanside hamlet for a time I might be at peace. In remission from a grief as unconscious as the dream itself: Of a woman — much older — racing down Latimer Road with her own kids in the car, giving them the life she couldn’t give herself.

It’s likely why I returned to the canyon. Long after my days as a nanny, the kids far grown, my own life expanding in complex directions, I always found my way back to the potlucks. The trips were infrequent but reverent, the way another person might check on an old friend, someone they were lucky to have met and even luckier to have taken for granted. Sacred before I understood the word. On time before I knew it had run out.

The air was warm the last night I visited. Alone but heavy handed, I slid my dish onto a corner of the table. The wood was worn and slightly buckled, but my seat was evergreen. “Who’s the outsider now?” I wondered.

I am.

It’s a Monday night in Pacific Palisades and I’m not supposed to be here.

I step out of the car to take it in: the cauterized earth, the scorched canopy, the charred fingers of petrified wood entwined in a macabre embrace.

In many ways this place now resembles the person I once was. Vacant, damaged, brittle, and teetering. She has suffered a violent role reversal, as twisted as the sign that lays at my feet.

I reach through the rear window to pick up the dish. Then I reluctantly step forward into darkness.