everyone wants to know

this was how i got to work in los angeles

Everyone wants to know, they ask with such incredulity that I might have just told them that I ride a dinosaur to work.  “Why would you move from California to Seattle?”  There are so many answers that I choose one.  “We’re from Seattle.”  This only confuses them further because then they want to know, “You mean you lived in Seattle before, then you moved to California, then decided to move back here?”  I get what they’re saying, to them it just doesn’t make sense that having lived in Seattle, then California that I would choose to move back.

Sometimes I take it a step further.  “We lived in Los Angeles.”  I will say, and those who have spent a significant amount of time there understand everyone else does not.  At this point I usually stop because they will either be people who don’t understand why anyone would leave Los Angeles or can’t understand and nothing that I can say will change their mind.

It’s been six months since the move and every time I show my ID’s or change an address we have to answer this question.  Every time I answer it I mentally list all the reasons why we left.

Reasons for leaving;

-traffic

-self centered people

-distance from home

-career changes

-constant sunny weather

-smog

-loneliness

-expensive... everything

I am surprised that by the time I get to this part of the list I stop thinking about all the things that drove me crazy and start thinking about all the things I loved and miss.  I begin to get confused, why did I leave Los Angeles?

I’ve mentioned in the blog before how when we were in LA I longed for Seattle and took joy in the things that connected me to this wonderful city.  My Seattle Mariners license plate was a badge of honor that I displayed with pride.  I simply wanted to be reminded of the city I left at twenty four, for the lonely, smoggy, self-centered urban war zone of Los Angeles.

Now in Seattle I take an equal amount of pride in my California license plate, my Intelligentsia coffee mug embossed with the bear flag, and I watch television shows and listen to music that remind me of the places I spent my mid twenties.

Am I destined to long to be living somewhere other than where I currently am?  Or can I not as the Ram Dass professes Be Here Now?  I remember back to May of 2010, Jaime and I were finally going on our honeymoon to Maui.  Because airline tickets were cheaper from Seattle to Maui than from LA, we decided to drive home and spend an extra week then fly to Maui from there.

In all our previous trips out of LA, just before we left I began to identify on a communal level with everything around me.  As much as I tried to reject the city I had slipped right into her consciousness without realizing it.  To my utter disbelief I began to miss the city.  When we would return I was stunned to find that I felt like I had returned home.  It wasn’t my real home, but I began to feel more comfortable in Los Angeles than Seattle.

In departing for our honeymoon I didn’t feel any of that, I wanted to get out of LA county as fast as possible, leave nothing but a trail of dust settling behind me.  In Maui, like so many before me, I didn’t want to leave.  Yes I wanted to stay there because it was such a freeing place with immeasurable beauty and life, but also because I knew that once we left that island we would have to return to LA.  Over and over I imagined leaving everything we owned there and never going back, making a new life anywhere else.

On our return trip home our car got stuck in a freak snow storm and we spent the night in a hotel at Mt. Shasta City.  I had been planning on driving straight through but this snowstorm halted all that, in the hotel room I felt relieved to not have to return to LA for one more night.  I no longer felt like I belonged there, it wasn’t welcoming.  I hated my job, Jaime hated her job, our best friends had moved to Brooklyn while we were away and our other friends would be leaving in the next year as well.  Things felt empty.

Not long after we returned I concluded that I was ready to leave Los Angeles.  I didn’t need to pack up immediately (our lease wasn’t up until November).  In my heart I knew that when Jaime finally came to me and suggested that we should move home, I would not disagree.  I didn’t have to wait long, by June Jaime was no longer interested in becoming a Hollywood actor and in August we began talking about moving.  By the end of August we had a location and date; Seattle, October 31st.

I suppose I don’t really have an answer for those who ask why I would leave LA.  I could tell them that it’s not really the paradise that it seems so many imagine.  I could tell them the horror stories about what it is like to fall on hard times in a foreign place where the city is virtually made up of only rich or poor.

On the other hand it has many redeeming qualities.  Six months later I miss the consistent warm weather, the beautiful Summer evenings, walking with Jaime and our dog Olive in Griffith park, I miss Los Feliz and Silverlake, I miss the feeling of being in the middle of all the hustle of Hollywood, I miss all the little surprises that a city like LA has waiting around every corner.  

What it really comes down to however is the fact that I don’t believe that you should live in a city when you don’t want to be there.  We are free creatures who have the choice to live and be wherever we want, there may be factors that draw you to specific places but the choice is still yours.  I remind myself constantly that what is possessing me is not genuine love for LA but rather a nostalgic memory of the best times I had there and the feeling of being somewhere other than where I am.  I believe I will return many times in my life and I will be able to visit all the places I love and I won’t be hampered by the reality of living there.  In the end I would rather be miserable in Seattle than miserable in Los Angeles.

open letter of apology to my future children

i expect my children will often give me the finger

Dear [insert children(s) name(s) here]

First I would like to apologize for the high cost of energy, that 50% of your income  goes directly to your energy bills is probably my fault.  In my defense those energy saver light bulbs are terrible and make everything look like an office building, the only reasonable thing to do was to replace all the lightbulbs in my house with halogen bulbs, even though they suck more energy then those ladyboys down on Santa Monica boulevard.  (Santa Monica boulevard was a street in Los Angeles a city in California before it sank into the Pacific ocean.)

I would also like to apologize for a shortage of water.  Contrary to what President Bristol Palin would have you believe, we were warned of an up coming world water shortage and instead of preparing, I continued to run the sink while brushing my teeth and washing the dishes, I also needed let the shower run for three minutes in order to get the perfect temperature.

Unfortunately we were also warned that we would eventually run out of oil.  It was a huge surprise to us there really wasn’t any oil in ANWR and we destroyed the landscape looking for it.  It was very beautiful (you can find pictures on wikipedia).  I’m also sorry about the beaches, apparently offshore oil rigs were not as safe as we thought.  If you ever got the chance to ride in a gas guzzling car you would understand why oil was so difficult to give up.

Finally, I’m sorry that you won’t get to eat at McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Applebee’s, KFC, or any other fast food or national chain restaurant.  I know that you probably see all of your friends enjoying Big Macs, and Double Downs and I’m sure they taste delicious.  During our senior year of college we gave up eating at those restaurants.  They may be quick, efficient, and seem delicious but the dark side to these companies is that their food is horrible for you, horrible for the people who work for it, horrible for the food industry, horrible for the environment, and while it may be tasty at first not long after you finish that seemingly delicious burger you will start to feel sick about yourself and in your stomach.

I also should apologize for not keeping processed food in the house.  No Kraft mac n cheese and definitely not with little ball park hot dogs chopped up in it.  No Oreo’s or TV dinners, pop only on special occasions and no juice boxes or Capri Sun.  Though you will be bombarded with hundreds of commercials for sugary cereals like Lucky Charms you won’t be getting any.  Prepare yourself for brown rice, whole wheat pasta and organic granola only.

What you will get an abundance of is fresh vegetables, fruits, legumes and roots (locally grown only.)  At this point I should also apologize for you having to spend every Saturday morning watching your parents swoon over organic eggs and vegetables at the farmers market like kids in a candy store.  You may also be required to log some time in your own garden tending to whatever can be grown in the back yard.

Why am I so guilty about raising you as a healthier better person?  Because in my youth I gorged myself with every one of those indulgences.  I could eat an entire bag of Cheetos in an afternoon and in my college years was known to drink a six pack of Dr. Pepper and fix myself a plate of bacon cooked in the microwave.  I ate McDonald’s and my favorite fast food dish was the Burger King chicken sandwich.  As I got older I became more conscious of not only what this food could do but what this food stood for.  I educated myself on the history of food and farmers and drastically changed my lifestyle.  I began reading the labels on food packages not looking for nutritional information but checking the ingredients.  

There was a time when I ate processed and fast food, had every cable channel available and wanted to be rich and famous in a big house with tons of toys.  Now my dream is to move to Maui and live in a small house with a poly cultural self sustaining farm.  I’m truly sorry your parents became hippies, it happened long before you were born and was in no way decided upon to make your life more difficult.

Love,

your caring parents.