Looking for Home
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8/22/2010
I was born here, grew up here; been trying to stay. I spent four years in Portland, OR, where I graduated from college. Portland, to me, felt oddly familiar; yet foreign, like an inexplicable blend, between California, and Hawaii. So close to what I knew as home; so far from what I'd known. I left my zip code of 90066 and ran from the sun. How ironic, it seems now, returning to what I'd tried to escape.
I'm trying to find a balance, here, among the niches of culture and neighborhood. Suitable for my neice, affordable for her mother, appropriate for my dogs, a pleasure to come home to. If nothing more, because trials, tribulations, and traffic are inevitable, if not highlighted here, I want to not haplessly fantasize, but adoringly envision the prize I forthrightly set out to work (paycheck), and work (traffic) to come home to.
I'll drive, but at what cost? If nothing else, I've learned that I'm prejudice and impatient. Maybe, there's more to lose in trying to recreate rather than renovate. There is so much, of what I want, right here. I don't want to succumb to the bigotry and false pretences that deterred me in my youth.
After returning to the 90066 zip code, my sister formidably states, "If not here, then a different state. Here is where it is."
By "here", she means, right here, the basin. You know, that flatland surrounded by hill, West of the 405 fwy.
With an ounce of insight, and a splash of support, I'm looking to prove her wrong. As diverse as this city is, I believe that she can not only stay here, but continue to admirably raise her now five-year-old daughter.
Moms and dads of Los Angeles, what gem did you boldly acquire while forfeiting unreliable routes home?
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