I have started this blog to document my inevitable culture shock to moving from LA to Nashville. I think everything I write should be taken with a mountain of salt. And all you grammar hounds are going to have to accept my poor use of punctuation and fragments. They are there on purpose. As a start, I thought I should have a summation of my feelings about LA.
Last week, it rained. I think it was the first real rain in about 9 months or so. When I was at Trader Joes, a woman in line said, “We don’t have seasons here. It is nice to FINALLY have some weather.” She said it with such disdain that I chuckled. Most people in LA list the weather in the top three reasons for living here. And yet, we all reserve the right to complain that we don’t have seasons. See “Gray in LA” by Loudon Wainwright. Having left Los Angeles once before, I know one thing for certain: This is a place that I love to hate. This time, it seems that I have made my way from love to hate back to love again.
I have come to terms with my proclivity for destructive relationships. My unwavering belief that I can make anything work has taken its toll. Strengths Finder calls it “Restorative”, and it is in my top five. This proclivity has never been limited to romance. I have a string of crap jobs that sucked my soul to show for it. As much as I believe LA to be filled with an alarming amount of self-serving, vapid people, with traffic that makes driving steak knives into your eyes seem appealing, and where you will pay insane rent to live in a hovel, I have learned to love the insanity that is Los Angeles. I love to hate it. And I love to hate the love/hate thing I have with it.
The beauty is in the contradiction. As is the comedy.
I used to live in Korea town, walking distance from the Wiltern. It was a 1920’s building with fire escape ladders on the outside of the building, wood floors, an exposed brick wall, and cabinets that wouldn’t shut because they have been painted over so many times. A Bohemian wonderland. I shared a wall with the rickety old elevator that had that whole double door thing. It made a not so low hum whenever in use. And I had to reset the breaker in the hallway every time I used my hair dryer. I loved this apartment. It made me feel like a hipster just living there. But when I walked around the neighborhood, shopped in the grocery stores, or tried to get a drink at the local bars (unsuccessfully, I might add), I was gawked at like an alien. It was as if I stepped into a Korea that had never seen a white girl. And I might enjoy the stories of getting stranded in my apartment by the marathon or the section 8 crazy that almost burned down the building by leaving a tortilla on the burner or coming home to see the crack whore that lived upstairs giving a blow job to her dealer in the lobby a little more than I should. This would make a normal person move. But when I think about it, there is a sparkle in my eyes. Not entirely unlike a “Those were the days” twinkle that emerges when my dad talks about his pot smoking teen years.
I also mostly hate the near death experiences that wait for me in the form of the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus darting and weaving the two lane roads with little to no regard for fellow motorists. It irritates me, for sure. And yet, it is an annoyance I expect and eventually have found comforting. Like living close to an airport where the plane noise makes you nuts until you realize you can’t sleep without it.
Then there are the things that I just plain love, like downtown LA…the library, Union Station, the obnoxious stairs at Bunker Hill, the Orpheum (best LA venue in my opinion). I love downtown LA. I love to show it to other people. I love that Century city was built in response to anti-Semitism. All the Jews took their toys and built their own damn city. I love Hollywood. Well, actually, I love to hate Hollywood. If it didn’t take 45 minutes to drive three blocks, I would really dig it. I think the fact that there are actually food establishments that serve both donuts and Chinese food pure comedy. I mean seriously. Who wants a donut that smells not so faintly of Chicken Chow Mein? I do love the subway stations. Especially, Hollywood and Vine. It has old film reels decorating the ceiling. I LOVE Venice and all the hippies that work from home so they can’t possibly cross the street in an orderly fashion. I love the Lazy Daisy Café that sits across from a Famer’s Market in the park on Saturdays. I love Molly Malone’s. I love staring at the ocean at night until you start to see neon blue in the waves. Serenity unlike any other. I love the ingenuity of the city. I love that you can feel the energy of so many people that have come to do something great. So many people that continue to strive even in the face of abject failure. I love to see detail in the architecture. Nuance matters. I am a city girl through and through. Part of the reason why is that I have a deep appreciation for the limitless potential of the human spirit. There is wonder in the accomplishments of man. And I see that expressed in the Biltmore, the U.S. Bank building, the LA Athletic Club, the Getty, the Santa Monica Pier, etc. etc. Cities can make me simultaneously feel completely insignificant and wholly unique. I know that nature can too, but it is so quiet out there that I get bored.
When people ask me where I am from, I struggle to answer. Because although I did not spend my childhood in LA, I certainly know that this is the place where I grew up. I have breathed heartbreak with the smog. I have been brave and been a coward. I have learned how to strive to be the hero of my own story. It feels like I have lived five lifetimes in LA. Some lifetimes that I would never repeat. And some that have nostalgia as warm as socks from the dryer. LA is a part of me, but it has never been particularly good to me. In the words of Patty Griffin “Tonight I cry for the love that I have lost and the love I never found”
I love you, LA. And I will miss you terribly. So I will take a lesson from your natural cycle. Sometimes you have to shake things up, burn them down, and wash them away to find new life.
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