Sunday mornings on the eastbound 10 freeway will almost convince you LA is a polite city. The deception starts with the ample space between each car traveling at a relaxed 68 miles per hour. Sunshine hits the grey road at a gentle angle. We’re headed back from the beach, contemplating worlds unknown. Last night we found ourselves in the thick of tourist Santa Monica, after 1.5 drinks each. I know the bones of that area so well, but living in the same city all your life is impossible because it’s never the same.
Now that the giant Gap on the corner of 3rd and Arizona is closed, I hardly recognize this part of town. I suppose I’m part of the problem. I stopped buying my cotton underwear there when I moved east of the 405 freeway.
Our buzzed footsteps carried us to the corner of 2nd and Santa Monica Blvd, across from the old donation yoga studio that I spent countless hours in. It was a refuge for me, and after I took my mom it became her lifeline. By hell or high-water she went to a class everyday, getting to know all the teachers and their fiancés, even attending backyard baby showers. It was here that she moved all her giant trees when my parents moved to their current apartment. The entire process was scrambled, but we made it happen at the last minute thanks to a yoga friend’s boyfriend.
Suddenly the studio’s courtyard became a mini forest. My mom took her groundskeeper responsibilities very seriously and soon they trusted her to lock the gates at night.
When the studio closed in 2020, I hadn’t been to a class in a year or so. Once again I was part of the problem, moving east and not wanting to fight the hordes of confused people looking for the new mall. In the midst of the pandemic, my mom couldn’t coordinate a future caretaker for the plants so their fate remained a mystery. As a family, we enjoy living in the grey that mystery affords us. I’ve only driven by what is now a foot massage parlor, unable to glimpse the towering trees..
But spurred on by the Gap’s departure I felt defiantly drawn to familiarity. I pointed toward the wrought iron gates, telling Chris I just wanted to peek and show him the old yoga space. Riding on 1.5 cocktails, I forgot that I might see the plants. I really wasn’t ready to see they were all gone. The entire courtyard was bare, every little pot erased. A motion sensor floodlight shone on the bare brick, bouncing off a blue tiled table I didn’t recognize. I gasped and the floodlight turned off. Despite my best jerky movements, I couldn’t get the light back so I stared into the murky distance, comprehending the emptiness.
I guess the theme of the month is soft loss.
Last week someone broke into my car and the only thing they took was my favorite bag that’s been in my life since I was a kid. A lime green and orange plastic basket, its rectangle shape perfect to carry my computer. I use it all the time. I’d left the bag (without the laptop) in the car on a fluke and the next day my car was tossed. It’s funny how objects think they belong in your heart, when their presence is purely physical. Who gave them the right to our emotions? I guess we did.
I don’t make space for much nostalgia, but I afforded the bag quite a bit.
Most stuff from my childhood is gone, lost to an untimely demolition of an old garage we’d piled our memorabilia into. To this day, I’m unsure if my parents know it’s gone. They must? But they don’t drive and I’ve never brought it up. The grey space of mystery prevails.
It must have been 2018 when I drove by the dirt patch formerly known as our storage garage. The disappearing act was too much to comprehend, so I checked the street signs—yes I was at the right intersection. A watercolor of relief and shock painted over me. All I could think of was the mess of spiderwebs and trinkets that could no longer be considered an earthly burden. Who really thought we could rescue the velvet hats from my great aunt or my kindergarten pictures from years of decay?
What did the wrecking ball see when it plunged into the garage’s splintered wooden door? Was there a piñata explosion of stuffed animals, my mom’s first bike, my dad’s cassettes and paintings? Did the mickey mouse toy chest and piles of chunky computer parts propel into the atmosphere? Was the entire block scattered with VHS tape from home movies, tattered baby-sized dresses and magic marker depictions of my dream house?
The bulldozer probably had a hell of a time scraping up the old pill bottles we kept in storage because we didn't possess the bandwidth to dispose of their contents safely. The orange prescription plastic probably burst into a thousand stars, going airborne. Maybe a few fragments are still shimmering in the dirt.
Whatever is built there now (no I haven’t checked) isn’t haunted because we’re all still alive, and the stuff we lost wasn’t imbued with our spirits. They were just husks of our past life.
Loss is such a strange emotion, it serves to occupy the space of what’s gone. You can fill up on loss, till you can’t see the initial void. As I stared at the car sans bag, courtyard sans plants, I felt loss rising in my chest, whispering, I’ll replace what you can’t have back. Nice try, but I’m not hosting another guest.
Sitting with the emptiness is so much harder. It’s the first step in reckoning with something truly being gone. And yes, losing something is totally different than losing someone. When things are gone, they don’t leave behind echoes of wise words or lessons imprinted on your heart. Every so often you just reach for something and realize the hand will never land on that familiar surface.
Where did it go? you may wonder,
as the future life of that object fades into the grey mystery.
Again and again, I bow to the unknown.
xx
James
p.s.
Thank you to everyone who listened to the Morning Activation meditation this past week. Find it on Spotify Apple Music or any of the usual suspects.
Love this!!
A personal anecdote if you will :
Growing up my sisters and I had the Puberty Fort ™️. As the name implies, it began construction in when I hit puberty, and when my younger siblings hit it as well, they made their contributions.
In truth it was more of a hazard than a fort; huge nails haphazardly struck in rotting 2 by 4s , different “levels” sat precariously between too- small tree branches and decorations grabbed from people’s garbage bins adorned it all.
The last time I saw it in its full glory I could still see little pools of hardened wax from when I first got into witch craft. I saw the old jewelry box that I had filled with notes that I’d never give to my crush, and lots of failed attempts at graffiti art.
Despite its decaying chaos, and hormonal memories, this place felt like home. As if it brought me into being as much as I had brought it. The fact that both my sisters had made contributions to this temple only made this decrepit structure feel more sacred.
This past week I had returned to the fort; or what was left of it. Rotting beams and planks of wood lay in neat piles, the decorations now long gone.
The strange feeling that comes with the small loss of something like this “you can fill up on loss until you cannot see the initial voice.”
Gosh it was so tempting to have a funeral for the destruction of Puberty Fort. Instead I sat with that empty feeling; the hollowness. Maybe another kid will come along and build the puberty fort once more, I don’t know.
When you said “again and again, I bow to the unknown”
If it wasn’t for the loss of puberty fort; I would not of been so touched by this email
Once again , Thank You James for your wonderful words and wonderful heart.