Recently on a trip back to my hometown, I took the opportunity to allow myself to be fully conscious and present in the experience. It’s taken me a bit to truly step into understanding all that the experience gave me, but I think I got it. Forgive me if this gets too convoluted.
For the first time in my life, I saw the city I grew up in for what it really is, not for what I perceived. I saw the memories of my childhood play out in front of me like they were on the Big Screen. I walked the paths of my parents and my grandparents through the city they loved so much; the very one I loathed and despised for nearly 30 years. The one that chewed me up and spit me back out time and time again those first 18 years. I decided that it was time to let go of those old feelings. Time to let go of the past, the pain, the disappointments, the resistance, and to embrace the beauty that is my history. To see it objectively and yield myself to its Grace.
Los Angeles, the City of Angels. To some, it’s a dream come true to bask in the warmth of its Light. To others, like me, it’s Light isn’t warm enough. The line from Pretty Woman, “Welcome to Hollywood, what’s your dream? Everybody that comes to Hollywood has a dream”, always struck me as so very superficial. I just couldn’t connect with anything LA had to offer, and so, at 18, I left. I didn’t look back once, even when I knew I could aways go home. It just was not an option. Yet, no matter how far I ran, LA was always with me, chasing after me like some lost puppy seeking acceptance and love. Every time I went back, it was like a huge weight was placed upon my shoulders, dragging me down until I left. Never felt comfortable there, always feeling like I was being sized up and judged as not good enough. Yet, there was always an affinity to my connection with “home”.
I don’t know exactly when my attitude toward the city changed, but I do know that one day, I just stopped hating it. One day, I just saw it as another city. No connection, no affection, no nothing. And though, having no feeling may seem, to some, as no big deal, to me, it was. Most of my adult life, I’ve had to defend that though I grew up there, when I had the chance to leave, I did. In 1991, when I was packing to move to Lake Powell, I knew I’d leave behind family, friends and memories, and I was good with that. I was good with walking away from all the swill that tried taking me down. Good with never looking back, knowing that where I grew up didn’t define me. Oh, how very wrong I was. Growing up in LA does define you. It defines you in ways that you don’t understand until many years later. And when you look back, you realize that it was a blessing and a curse. The phrase, “You can take the girl out of (insert anything, in this case LA), but you can’t take LA out of the girl”, used to always bother me, because I never saw myself as an LA Girl, or even a Valley Girl. I spent so much time running away from it, that I never saw the beauty in how it defined me.
With everything going on in the world right now, all the hate, all the anger, the cancel culture, etc; my experiences growing up in LA being who I am, prepared me for this. I am not surprised, for I have seen the worst of humanity directed at me. I have experienced some pretty deep traumas, most of which perpetuated because of the very energy I gave to them. I own that. I’m not proud of the role I played in my own pain, but I survived, and I learned what it means to be resilient. And while there are definitely people in this world who’ve experienced far more painful traumas than my own, the psychological damage runs along the same lines. Though I have no idea what it’s like to go through any type of actual physical torture, war, poverty, etc, I do know what it’s like to be abused on multiple levels. And I know just how damaging trauma can be. Spent years wondering why these things kept happening to me. It was only when I decided I had reached my breaking point and sought trusted counsel, that I began to see not only the why, but the how. And I sat with that, for a long time. It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow and it hurt going down for sure. But as it digested into my being and settled, where it would, near my soul, a veil lifted and I began to see this whole theatre play out in front of me.
I understood it was never the city that chewed me up and spit me back out, it was only myself. The city was what made me resilient. The city was what made me tough. The city was what made me creative, bold, expressive. It made me appreciate the finer things in life, as well as all the rough around the edges stuff. It gave me a glimpse into humanity from virtually every angle and allowed me to observe human behavior in a way I don’t think I’d have been able living anywhere else.
For the first time in my nearly 48 yrs of life, I saw Los Angeles from the perspective of bittersweet nostalgia. And I saw the beauty that still exists there amongst the grime and the desperation. I saw the people with their generosity and kindness and laid back attitude, with a touch of Hollywood arrogance. I saw the history of the ones who built Los Angeles from their eyes. I saw the Los Angeles of the days gone by, and the people who hope to bring that feeling back. I saw the beauty of her landscape, her soft rolling hills covered in green and the palm tree lined streets that are so very famous. I felt the heart and soul of a city begging for forgiveness, longing to be loved again. For the first time, I felt connected to my home and I stand now, humbly in her Grace. For she made me who I am. With every scar, every tear, every joy, Los Angeles is my home.
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