I Love L.A.
Roll down the window, put down the top, crank up the Beach Boys baby, don't let the music stop.
As a little kid engrossed in modern media, Los Angeles was it. The pinnacle of what it meant to be a human, the place where all the music and shows and movies came from, that magically stayed as warm and as beautiful as the people who lived there.
But somewhere I lost the fascination. Probably while being a gothy sun-hating pale and cantankerous teenager. I really can’t pinpoint when the sheen dimmed.
As I grew into a traveler, L.A. was never on my list. New York was it for me. Then, with travel experience, I fell in love with Chicago.
Five years ago a friend in L.A. bought an extra ticket to a Patti Smith concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. If I wanted it, all I had to do was set foot in L.A. And so I did, with the same trepidation I’d have if entering a windowless van for a Patti Smith ticket.
March 3, 2020, I landed in Burbank without a cloud in the cerulean sky. After navigating the outdoor maze from the terminal to the gate, the Enterprise counter agent saw I was from their home base of St. Louis and offered me an upgrade—a brand-new Jaguar XE sports sedan with paddle shifters and a moonroof.
As I sat at the parking garage exit, waiting to turn onto Hollywood Way, I fully embraced what felt like the beginning of something important by hitting Spotify and cranking that car’s speakers all the way up to Randy Newman before turning into the infamous afternoon traffic:
My friend Paige who’d offered the concert ticket lived in the Valley, so I had an AirBnB in Burbank. Too early to check in, I headed to a pie and coffee shop—I can sniff out pie and coffee anywhere—in North Hollywood for lunch and coffee and bearings-getting. I sat at a sidewalk table and marveled at just how unreal everything looked, having left cold and gray Midwest March behind.
I never cared about palm trees until I saw them. Sitting across the street with a dirty horchata, I just stared and watched.
First I saw his guitar gig bag as he walked by my table. My eyes moved up to a focused face, blue eyes straight ahead, oblivious to me as he entered the coffee house. And I laughed, a little out-loud giggle because my god, that was an attractive Los Angeles man around my age and he had no clue I was alive. I was so completely out of my league.
As the late afternoon cool breeze blew, I went inside for a second coffee and that slice of pie because I was getting chilly—I never got chilly, what with being a fat 47-year-old. And I was wearing a sundress, having ditched my sweater in the Jag.
I got my order and took a seat at the head of the empty community table by a small stage where a musician was setting up.
And suddenly, the man was sitting to my left. He tripped over his words a little as he said that he hoped he wasn’t being too forward but he liked my tattoos—my left arm had a half-sleeve and a quarter-sleeve at the time. Were flowers my “thing”?
Only then did I realize that I was wearing a floral-print dress against my arm that’s heavy with floral tattoos, next to a floral-print purse.
I always thought of myself as more of a polka-dot aficionado but damn if he wasn’t observant.
I told him I was from St. Louis and had been in town less than two hours. He looked disappointed, but we visited anyway until it was his turn to set up for the jazz gig that was about to start.
I stayed longer than I intended, until after dark even though I was a little worried about finding my AirBnB in the dark. The ticket I had to see Lydia Lunch that night all but forgotten. I was happy where I was. But I left before the band finished.
And I instantly had regrets.
After settling into my place, I really started having regrets. So I did some detective work and, thanks to the lack of privacy of social media, tracked him down and sent a message.
And that’s how I met one of my favorite people in the world within two hours of arriving in a city I thought I would hate that immediately felt like home.
For the rest of the week, I kept a crammed social calendar. All the girlfriends I’d met in years of traveling to Wilco shows turned up and, despite my painful pre-op knees, they showed me the sites.
I was staying in a converted poolhouse filled with Buddhist icons and photos from movie sets. The owner lived in the house and welcomed my friends into her home, where she fed us homemade veggie lasagne and bruschetta, cheesecake and cappuccinos. She’d made dinner for her best friend’s birthday and insisted we join their party on the patio between our houses.
With AirBnBs I very much want my privacy and generally prefer to not meet my hosts. But this was different. This was home with people I love.
By the time Friday’s Patti Smith show arrived, the first Los Angeles case of Covid had been diagnosed. Patti ended her show by telling us to go forth carefully, to take care of each other, to weather what was to come and we’d dance together again, soon.
It would be seventeen months before I returned to L.A.
For almost five years now, Los Angeles has been on my mind on a daily basis. I still haven’t done any of the toursty stuff. I haven’t knowingly spotted any celebrities. You can flip through the archives here and see what I do in L.A.—I see my friends, explore alone, go to concerts, take long afternoon naps with open windows, hang out at coffeehouses and bars and weird little windows and old gas stations that sell sandwiches. I have coffee just about every L.A. day with that guy I met on my first L.A. day. Hit the bookstores, drive, sit in traffic, and feel more like my true self, like I can be who I am without blowback, more than any other place in the world.
My heart lives in Los Angeles.
A few weeks ago I decided to spend the long MLK Jr. holiday weekend in L.A., even though I was just there in October. There’s no such thing as too many L.A. trips, or making them too close together, as far as I’m concerned.
Unless authorities tell me otherwise, I’m still going. Fires be damned. Even though fire scares me more than any other element. I don’t care. When the news started breaking on Tuesday, my gut reaction was, “What can I do? How can I be useful?”
I’ve lined up some volunteering—helping a shop that’s giving clothing to plus size fire victims, and doing whatever’s needed with a cat rescue. While my heart aches, watching my city burn from half a country away, I know I don’t need to be there to relax. I need to be there if I can be useful. I’ll spend my money at restaurants that are feeding fire victims and firefighters. I’m doing some fundraising and you can help if you’d like. Just get in touch with me. I’ll hug my friends, and likely I’ll cry a lot.
I’ve been listening to that Randy Newman song all week. It’s become a mantra and a prayer. Newman, with all of the tongue-in-cheek facetiousness in that song, hits the core of my broken heart.
For five years I’ve had my California dream: once CJ’s out of college, moving to L.A. to live out my last decades as a flower-bedecked weird old Silver Lake lady with a lot of cats, living away from a place where I’m allergic to the air and the cold winters make my knees feel like cinderblocks.
Right now, I don’t know if there will be any place left to be. But if there’s any place with the dreamers and innovators and balls to rebuild it better, it’s L.A.
I love it
I love L.A.
Great essay. Thanks for posting.
My heart is with L.A. too. Thank you for beautiful memories and for helping.