On Sunlight and Old School Horses: Return to Los Angeles
California didn’t have my people, but it had me.
I was on a bike ride in Sonoma, at a strange little bachelorette weekend, when the smell of eucalyptus and orange started following me. It followed me back to the overpriced spa where I and three other women I didn’t know were staying, mixing into the aroma of chlorine and white wine. I need to go home, I thought.
By “home” I meant Los Angeles. At the time I was living in Brooklyn, holding onto the notion that my childhood in Los Angeles had been a cosmic mistake. Angelenos were not my people. New Yorkers were: They read books, and didn’t try to talk me out of my depression. They didn’t care if I said hello or not.
My parents were not my people. When I forced myself to visit Los Angeles, my mother would find small ways to remind me that she never really liked me. There would be no food in the house, even when I came home for Thanksgiving. But on the counter would be a bag of fresh bagels. This seemed promising initially, until I discovered it contained only blueberry bagels, and cream cheese sprinkled with walnuts. Sometimes the bagels were strawberry, and sometimes the cream cheese had cranberries, but despite the variation, the bagels were always a way for my mother to make fun of my escape to New York.
