Home Again
While I’ve since returned to the spacial comforts of my apartment and the morning delight of french press organic coffee, it feels as though I’ve embarked on another trip to a familiar place, not unlike a hotel or an airport where everything seems temporary. LA felt like home — a setting I knew every square inch of — the ins and outs of its perfect imperfections. A repository of memories once so familiar and preserved like pickles in a jar of salted vinegar.
The interaction with the park-and-ride shuttle driver first hinted that I no longer occupied the City of Angels. “You take care and have a good night, now” is hardly the long-winded goodbye you’d exchange a “Thanks, you too” for with a Santa Monica passersby, or even a Beverly Hills server eager to please you with kindness in exchange for a generous tip. There’s a subtle suggestion in the commonplace exchange of words here in Austin that paints the picture of authenticity with regards to routine kindness. Peaks and valleys in tonality of the slower-paced dialect inform you of a genuine wish for your wellbeing; a warm exchange with a stranger sure to be unfound anywhere in the energizing chaos between Ventura and Orange County.
And while genuine courtesy is a social delight that can put the worst of days at ease, something calls me back to the sea breeze of Southern California. From the moment I laid my suitcase down and kicked my untied shoes into the corner of my apartment hallway, Sunday’s walk along the sands of Will Rogers State Beach has danced around the focal point of my conscious mind, so pleasing to the soul that I welcome its seemingly permanent spot in the spectacle below my eyelids. Each wave that kisses the shoreline floods the sand below my rolled up jeans and takes with it a piece of my own anxiety as it retreats into the never-ending cotton candy blue of the boundless Pacific Ocean. A mother dances around a sand castle with her months-old baby as a man in his mid-40’s sits cross-legged with his eyes closed, launching his own mind into the ether of contemplation. The sand crunches under my feet with each step, turning a softer shade of vanilla brown in an oval surrounding the surface of each graceful stride. Everything is perfect. It’s as close as one gets to heaven without losing their heartbeat.
Yet in the distance of this same memory — only recently constructed yet sure to remain for years — pain exists as a faint echo, distorted by the crashes of the waves but present nonetheless, not overlapping with bliss but emanating in parallel (albeit much softer) motion. Beyond the firework-like blooms of the palm trees and further along the boardwalk, past the crimson red outdoor seating of Perry’s Café and over the mustard-ketchup bucket seats of the Santa Monica Pier ferris wheel, the life of continual apprehension I had here only months prior lingers. The sandy shores of Santa Monica meant little to a mind constantly wondering when life as normal would make its triumphant return. Alas, it didn’t seem as if sitting down at a restaurant without first presenting proof of x, y, or z would ever be a reality again, so I relocated to a city where there were no prerequisites in exchanging money for goods and services.
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Equally loathsome was the post-vaccine requirement of a facial garment in all public spaces, now proven to be ineffective at preventing infection and spread unless it’s of a particular grade and properly fitted — what people had been saying all along. The cloth and the nanofiber never provided us with anything more than a false sense of security and a means of signaling to others, “I follow the rules (and you should, too.)” Everyday social interactions we all took for granted — friendly conversations with strangers in the grocery store, or small-talk chats about the weather with our local baristas — were reduced to transactional experiences, quite literally muffled under cloth and completely void of humanity. Living in Los Angeles was repetitive and basic — absent of the spontaneity that once rendered its cultural landmarks and natural beauty so pleasurable.
But this time was different — there were no “Must Show Proof” signs in the front windows of my favorite cafes and Tex-Mex counter serves. The cashier at Trader Joe’s that rang up my two cases of Blueberry Lemonade sparkling water smiled at me, and I could see his unfettered smile, presumably hidden under light blue cloth just two months ago but now on full display. He told me about how much he loved the calorie-free bubbly drink and pointed to the shelf behind him, going through every flavor and noting which were his favorites. While the contents of the conversation we had weren’t particularly stimulating, the brief, casual dialogue provided more interaction than I had seen in the final two years of living in LA combined.
As I suspected, the absence of the county insisting that everyone pseudo-shield the bottom halves of their faces furnished much more palatable exchanges of quotidian interactions. I felt free — a foreign experience to post-2020 Los Angeles, but reminiscent of a time before covid, marked by pure joy and indifference as to who the mayor was or what policies the Board of Supervisors was enforcing — a period of blissful ignorance and picturesque Southern California living.
Perhaps it was that as a visiting Texas resident (if only on paper and still a Californian at heart), I was no longer subject to the feeling of encroachment on personal liberties that permeated my life when a California Driver’s License occupied my wallet. In a spectrum of citizens, with mere occupants on one side and property of the state on the other, California seems to view its people through the lens of the latter. No longer belonging to the institution of The Golden State, I was liberated in knowing that it didn’t have a claim to my money, or to my individual medical choices, or to my risk assessment and management. Had I ventured onto the premises of a place still enforcing 2021’s ridiculousness, my response to a request of putting on the political fashion accessory or showing the card of control was well-rehearsed and ready for deployment — “Sorry, I’m visiting from Texas. We don’t do any of this back home.”
And yet when I think of “back home,” it’s synonymous with the 405 and palm trees. My Saturdays feel empty without a climb up the rocky stairs of Runyon Canyon’s east trail. A five-hour chat with a friend on the patio of the Beverly Hills Urth Café isn’t a pleasantry that Austin will ever be able to offer. It’s not to say that my new home doesn’t have its pockets of charm and places of interest, but little compares to a barefoot walk down seaside Santa Monica — earbuds in, 90’s alternative music playing, the periodic tickle of cold, salty water rushing in to erase the imprints of steps prior and gently wash my feet.
With the anticipation of a summer spike in cases, I’ll be paying close attention to how California responds. If Los Angeles and the Golden State can make it through a surge without its overlords reinstituting ineffective spread prevention measures, resurrecting a life in Southern California abruptly put on pause isn’t completely out of the question. Freshly risen from two years of tyrannical torture, Los Angeles calls me back — “It’s time to come home.” But while its sands are as soft as ever and its hills beg me to lace my hiking shoes up once more, sanity isn’t worth sacrificing, nor is it possible to maintain with the constant threat of everchanging rules governing how I manage and assess public health threats.
