Roadtrip

***EDIT at 9:54 am 4/2/25 see red text in last paragraph

I came back to Los Angeles and was welcomed by brake lights and tow truck crucifixes. In a matter of six hours and a roadway pass called ‘The Grapevine’ I ended up in traffic behind Dodger Stadium. The sky was cloudy, the road was clogged, and I turned my stereo’s volume up. The lane to my right was crawling past me. A saggy truck, with a lawn mower and plant clippings resting in its bed, had a driver in an orange suit. He was waving at me so I waved back. He looked behind him and then fell up the lane. 

Seeing him made me think of why is it that house painters wear white clothing and why do gardeners have to wear orange? This thought was interrupted when a silver sedan started passing me on my right. It was an older curly haired man. He had small eye glasses and looked at me through the rectangular lenses. I rolled down my window before turning my music down. The sedan driver pointed towards the back of my car and said, “Your gas is open.” I glanced at my sideview mirror. My fuel cap was dangling and the little  door was open. I got gas in Kettleman City which was 3 hours or so ago, was it open this whole time? I was now nearing the ramp to the 2. I smiled and replied, “Thank you.” 

After this I learned that the manners of other drivers when they see your fuel cap dangling become cordial. It should not have been that easy for me to glide across four lanes and escape the gridlock hell that was the 5 freeway southbound around 3:30 on a Wednesday. I put my hazards on and parked my car somewhere just off Glendale Avenue. I turned the gas cap and pushed closed the door. My feet were touching asphalt that belonged to Los Angeles. I got back in my car.

I forgot what it felt like to drive in Los Angeles. I forgot how the Downtown Skyline makes me feel. I forgot about the billboards that advertise things I can understand, like shows I will never watch or a new canned cocktail that is ready to drink. Twice in the past two months I have gone to this bar in San Francisco. Each time with different people, but upon my entrance each time Randy Newman’s song “I Love L.A.” came on. Once is funny, twice is something. The most recent time I was at this particular bar my cousin Lulu went to order some more beers. The bartender asked her, “Where are you all visiting from?” Lulu replied, “I am visiting my cousin. She and her friends live here.” The bartender handed her a couple beers saying, “Oh, I had to ask because attractive people never come in here.” I had a friend once say to me, specifically in reference to Southern California, but for the sake when talking about Los Angeles I think it is applicable. She said, “It is a funny thing to live in a place that the prettiest girls from every small town flock to. The baseline population is going to be more attractive than everywhere else.” Physical attractiveness is subjective, but it always makes me think beauty attracts beauty. California is a bombshell, so why wouldn’t people come here for a piece of it?

On my afternoon of reentrance to Los Angeles, I walked down streets in L.A. I had never before bothered to visit. Everyone was beautiful. Everyone seemed to belong to this place. I felt like I was walking into rooms I was not invited to, but maybe that was because I do not live there anymore. I came to L.A. to attend a writing conference, but I treated it more like I was going to a writing conference because it was taking place in L.A., I had a reason to be there. I had a reason to break my neck looking at palm trees, catalog new graffiti on familiar underpasses, sit in traffic listening to music that belonged to this place. I wanted to exist in this world for a little while.

The next morning I drove on the 10 eastbound. I passed an exit that used to mean home was around the corner. About 15 minutes later, I walked into the Los Angeles Convention center and stood in a line for about 10 minutes. The pair that was waiting behind me talked about Los Angeles. “It took us an hour to go 12 miles.” The woman with loose fitting clothing said. “You know they say Houston has the worst urban sprawl, but this is unreal to me.” replied the man wearing skinny jeans and low top converse. I felt smug standing in front of them in line. Smug because I know what they are talking about. Smug because they simply do not get it. I wanted to say, “There is charm in the inconvenience.” Los Angeles could be understood as a cute apartment without a dishwasher or laundry or ample parking. It is not about the ease of life, it is about the place in which you find yourself over time. 

I attended a few panels at this conference, but the one that really rattled me was about Los Angeles Noir. Four writers talked about how this particular city welcomes a certain darkness and cynicism. Los Angeles is both transactional and aspirational. It is not an easy place to live, but it is. So much sunlight, just means there are just as many shadows being cast. Los Angeles is beautiful, but it isn’t. Los Angeles is phony, but it isn’t. I wrote in my notebook while one writer talked about how an old neighbor of his always asked to borrow bleach, a vacuum cleaner, and beer. I wrote: I have changed, but I haven’t. Los Angeles has changed, but it hasn’t. Maybe where I am doesn’t seem to matter and what I do is just for the sake of bills. Because when I think of what I want it is warm and sunny and edgy. My horoscope today was, ‘Envision the wildflowers that you want to see in the landscape of your life and then look for them’. As the panelists continued to discuss how the only way to understand Los Angeles is through sunshine and noir I tried to write a haiku. When I was stuck sitting with my gas cap dangling recognizing certain hillsides and off ramps I paired the words tow truck crucifix. Embarrassingly, I really liked the sound of it together. What is more embarrassing is the fact that I sat in a room sharing fluorescent lights with published writers and I wrote a haiku in my notebook: “Palm tree skyline glows/ Tow truck crucifix hits brakes/ Sunset smog sky burns.” I left that panel swirling with thoughts about Los Angeles. This place that is a nonsensical suburban quagmire. I spent the rest of the evening meeting people who moved here for reasons, some unknown. Some were swept up in the romance of a place they only knew by name. Some because they lived on the east or up north. Others because this was the only place that made sense for a person like themselves. 

I spent two days back in Los Angeles thinking about it. As I thought about this place I inadvertently thought about San Francisco, the place in which I currently live. Los Angeles is big, San Francisco is small. Los Angeles has celebrities, San Francisco does not. Los Angeles has more palm trees, arguably better weather, and it takes a lot longer to get anywhere. Los Angeles has artists and lots of them. San Francisco has bridges, uniform architecture, greenspace, and lots of people who wear quarter zip sweaters. 

Come Sunday, I drove back up to San Francisco thinking about the place which fell further and further behind me. There is a Didion quote that said it best, “I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again.” I suppose Los Angeles touched me first and in passing left its mark. For so long I only wanted to talk about this place and breathe the air there. Before I left for this little trip I wrote: In five days time I will sit behind my steering wheel Los Angeles bound. There is a level of unease at the thought of moving through a place I thought was supposed to never leave. There is a level of excitement upon a return. The walks down the familiar streets. The visits to old stomping grounds. But Los Angeles is a desert with dreamy mirages that present to me groundless façades of what I want. Frosted cardboard birthday cake, fake blondes, and trees that are fruitless and bad at offering shade. I cannot wait. It is dreamy and unreal and makes no sense. I moved, maybe not on, but away. There was a soreness that sometimes came to the surface when the city’s name would come up in conversation. I felt like whatever was being said was missing the mark. Or if I ever said anything it was more about me talking to myself, attempting to say ‘that was the past.’ It felt like gossip, that 400 miles North I could get away with because it would not get back to anyone. Eventually, the soreness faded because new things became my recent past that faded into new distractions. I am happy in San Francisco. I like my walking routes, bars, grocery stores, and routines here. It is happy and it is fine. I have made friends, but this all happened after the first. Maybe if I could move on it would be fine, but maybe I am not supposed to move on? This could be the lesson about coming and going, but also returning. It is not a forfeit, but rather a re-entry back to where I was, but with who I am now.