A Woman of Two Cities

For a long time, I didn’t like Los Angeles.  I remember thinking that the sunsets were obscenely garish when I first went there back in the Sixties to visit my sister. The palm trees annoyed me, too.  When I learned that they weren’t indigenous, but had been planted intentionally, I was doubly offended—how plastic, how fake, how L.A. 

Even after I moved and lived there for some ten years, it wasn’t a good fit.  I was too East Coast: I had sharp opinions which I voiced; I didn’t play tennis; I didn’t get up a 6 a.m. and retire at 9 p.m. so as to be hyper-productive in my working hours.  But somewhere along the line, the city wormed its way into my heart and I find I am, wherever I may live, an Angeleno.

I went back the other day, the trip that was postponed when I .  In addition to all things I had to do—see the dentist! see friends!—I wanted to see if I could understand what why I’ve never really settled here in Elk Grove, why I’m always wanting to be back in L.A.

I did end up seeing the dentist and seeing friends, but I’m not sure about the self-understanding.

The 380-plus-mile trip on I-5 is anything but scenic.  It is, in fact, about as boring a landscape as God created this side of the moon.  Brown, dry, neverending fields, both fallow and weed-filled.  The unremitting sameness is broken every once in a while by signs offering acreage for sale or reminders that while we may be in California, we’re really in the Bible Belt. “Stop the Congress Created Dust Bowl”....”Trust Jesus!” 

At the end of the drive is the Grapevine, a steep climb over the mountains of Angeles National Forest.  Small cars with small engines putter in low gear.  The endless trail of eighteen-wheelers rides the right-hand lane where there are drive-offs should their brakes fail.  Those of us with zippier cars make our way past more endless brown—scrub and rock, boulder and, occasionally, burnt-out places.  At the other end of the Grapevine lies L.A. in all its glory, with the Hollywood Hills visible in the distance.

In Los Angeles, I stay with a friend whose house is right next door to the one I used to own.  It’s a good chance for me to test whether what I feel for L.A. is really yearning for my old house. No. I feel absolutely nothing when I look at it.  Or rather, I feel amazed that I feel absolutely nothing when I look at it.  But walking around my old neighborhood, I do feel something.  What is it?  A sense of being home?  Everything is familiar to me.  I feel as if I fit in. 

There’s a circuit that I’ve done for years with my dog, Molly, and we fall into that easily, both of us.  There’s the house where they filmed one of the first episodes of CSI Miami. Over there is my friend Mark’s house—wow! Those itty-bitty palm trees he planted seven or so years ago are now giant.  There’s something to see every step we take, and something for Molly to smell, since there are dogs galore in the neighborhood.       

I am home. I cannot say it any better than that. I spend the drive back to Elk Grove trying to figure out why.  Back up the Grapevine, which this direction ends in what used to be the endless farm and fields of the Central Valley with the mountains off to the right.  Both are barely visible, shrouded now in thick, brownish-yellow smog.  I pass Harris Ranch, which invites all to enjoy their famous Harris Ranch beef.  Several miles down the road, I pass the Harris Ranch feed lot; the stench is such to put one off the famous Harris Ranch beef forever. 

Back up I-5, into the no-man’s land where radio reception is reduced to Spanish-speaking stations and/or Christian exhortations.  I amuse myself by trying to figure out the specifics of the signs that some political entity has put up weighing in on the water battles going on in the Central Valley.  As best I can determine, both the high price of food and the lack of jobs in America are directly related to the fact that the water allotment to farmers has been cut by Pelosi! Boxer! Costa!

I get to Elk Grove around dinnertime. Opening the door to , I'm hit by a wall of sound that I haven’t heard since I’ve been away: the babble of lots and lots and lots of kids' voices, excited about their Little League game and excited about their pizza.  Later that night, I take Molly out for her final sniff of the grass, and I’m struck by the absolute peacefulness of the evening.  It’s a clear night and the stars are endless; this too I love.  And my house, my Elk Grove house, that is home to me.  

The best I can say right now is that I am a woman of two cities.  Clearly, that’s something I’m going to have to figure out.