When the city speaks, you are obligated to listen. Summer plays both sides of the coin: slow moving caress and a slap in the face, maybe both in one day. That’s what makes this season drift like heat lightning, gone in a blink. I used to let it go, but right now I’m leaning in.
Let me report my findings. There’s a slow burn sizzle on the sidewalks, but fingers touch: a pulse is here, palpable.
Los Angeles is not pretty on its own. But it has moments. Nothing feels more alive then standing by a languid pond overlooking Downtown drenched in sunset hues. Witness real alchemy as molten pink shatters the boxy skyscrapers. From our place on solid ground, we watch the tallest surfaces defy the odds, catching final shining rays that have long receded from our feet. LA’s beauty is all about timing.
Of course we have lush outdoor pockets equipped with trails and a series of beaches that call in an estimated 50 million visitors a year. But it’s as if the city planners saw such natural offerings and decided to leave it at that. Go to Sofia in Bulgaria and you’ll be shocked by the square mileage of sprawling parks patchworked through the city. I spent an entire Sunday walking grassy earth, passing jungle gyms, sculpture gardens, a retired brutalist fountain covered in clambering children. The best part? That was just one park of many, in a city one quarter the size of LA. Open sky is magnetic, drawing young couples on dates, old couples tanning in their underwear, kids on bikes with training wheels, stoic women walking with a leather bag slung over their shoulder, eyes ever on the horizon. Somewhere, Nicole Kidman is whispering, we come to this place, but no one is listening. It’s outdoors, bright light, real life.
The best cities are layer cakes: commerce, residential with parks between it all, frosting to sink your teeth into. Inherent pleasure within the cityscape. I never even thought about it until I crossed the Atlantic. Los Angeles spreads us thin, margarine on a rigid piece of whole wheat toast. We steep in our environment, become dip dyed and transformed into a certain shape of priorities.
A ghost stands in the corner of parties, rattling its single catchphrase: and what do you do for a living?
This ghost is not alone. It’s easy to become dry and calculating about our place in this space. Since it’s so crowded on the freeways, you should only hit the road with a sure destination. When was the last time you took a drive just for the fun of it? To turn on your music, slow weave through the intersections, land somewhere or maybe not?
These days I like to visit Griffith Park, the loping side where you can drive up and right away touch grass. For so long, I resisted the quick car ride, convinced myself I needed to walk there, a journey that can’t be squeezed into the sandwich of a regular day. So I didn’t go, but I told myself I would one day. I’d make time in my schedule to be the girl that walks from Atwater to Griffith. Where do I get these notions? With all this heat, something’s gotta give. I decided to take my dog to run on cool grass in the morning, avoid the pavement entirely. I threw up my arms, I cannot always live up to my own ideals! It was a five minute drive.
We jumped out of the car and I felt the immediate easy pleasure of big sky. We don’t need to earn wide open space. It should not be a luxury, that’s just LA living rent free in my brain.
Years ago, I travelled with my ex to Saint Louis. Somehow we got solar eclipse fever and Saint Louis was on the trajectory for total coverage. In New York, the winking sun appeared as small crescent shapes on the mailboxes, sidewalks, outstretched palms. LA faced a similar outcome. We wanted the whole thing gone, to be plunged in total darkness and emerge fully into the light.
We were broken up, but we went as a couple because it made things easier. My dad was in between cancer treatments and I wanted to escape my real reality for something surreal. What could be better than a total eclipse in the middle of the country? My ex’s best friend’s father (I love sentences like that) had a giant house in Clayton, where we could stay in an empty bedroom at not cost. Clayton is a wealthy neighborhood just outside of Saint Louis, full of old houses made of that classic red brick, surrounded by grass so green, you’d think it was artificial. The man who welcomed us into his home never used the upstairs. He was divorced and wasn’t ready to sell the place, though he knew it was too big for him. Our bedroom was wide and breezy, we were invited to swim in the pool with a built in fountain.
Turns out, Clayton alone was more surreal than I was planning for—somehow the limitless space of the house, the property, the suburb, it was all too much. I was so accustomed to the compact feeling of Los Angeles, I was stunned to feel a breath of fresh air, the smooth luxury of blue sky from every angle. Our first night in Clayton, I cried while unpacking my pajamas. My ex was perplexed, a bit annoyed, but I admit I wasn’t giving him much.
I just can’t believe how much space there is here.
After a year of emotional compression, physical strain, it was as though I’d let the circulation back into every single limb all at once. Pins and needles all over. We watched the eclipse on the front lawn of an elementary school. As we stared at the sunless sky, I wondered if we were experiencing some kind of magic. Could this be the spell that holds us together?
After we broke up for real, I got in my car and drove to Joshua Tree. I found an air bnb and wandered around Noah Purifoy’s Outdoor Museum. I took a good long look at the stars, bought a bottle of wine from the liquor store and fell asleep after two glasses. I slept so well.
When I got back to LA, I could no longer buy into the simulated graph formed by mid-rise buildings, city blocks, dissected sheets of ocean on the horizon. I was different, I knew there was more. The knowing was enough to buoy me over the five-way intersections and figure eight freeway ramps.
There’s so much talk of designing space. But space is inherent, it’s all encompassing, it’s ever present. Still to this day, I am adamant about seeing stars. The feeling is timeless, staring at an infinite mystery. You can forget your body, fling your consciousness into the spots of light and remember what it feels like to be nothing. And also everything.
No matter where I go, I can always look up. Find the blue, the pink, the grey, the lilac. Pitch black shimmering. Mottled with clouds or totally clear.
Pinch me if I ever take it for granted.
LOVE the layered cake metaphor 🎂 so very true 🤍