Meditations on Nostalgia for the City

I always contend the best place to lose your mind is Los Angeles because you fit right in. Still, when I spent my first six months in Los Feliz, I made note of the axis being bent in the favor of my preference. The houses could pile on top of each other, forgoing privacy and personal lawns and I would savor the silence of the streets and how on particular nights, the stars burned just as bright as the daytime sun. There are many misconceptions of the places that repair our hearts. These are not perfect cities or entirely quiet. Many littered with their own broken dreams and empty promises and people like myself who have felt the letdown of both. But the ocean pacifies, it’s very name in the lapping of its waves, washing the shore with the same impermanence of the residents behind it: always packed for the final straw or the earthquake or the pandemic (God forbid). It means “the happies”. I lived in The Happies. And so I was. I knew the blistering of winter but welcomed the sunburn. Two extremes leading to the same kissed cheeks; I always pine for the latter. Always look forward to the sweat on the brow and the smell of hot strawberries on the roadside of that one highway everyone who spits their distaste for the words “Los Angeles” hates. Commutes to order your thoughts or hopes or stare out at the hummingbird who has made her way through this concrete to the palms. The only moving thing in miles of stillness. Sometimes I feel the same, parsing through that which has destructed my life path to find that which is sweet, passing whatever looks on me with loving eyes. Los Feliz. The Happies.