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August 21, 2006
Bright Lights, Big City, Small World
I love L.A. Song by Beth Hart, the inspiration for last post's title. She returns to L.A., just like I have. Returned to skies without stars. In Redding, the sky is plum full of them.
At my parents', 8 miles outside of town, sleeping is weird. No drunk neighbors blasting Sublime, the only noise is the occasional car on our rural road. I used my brights driving home, something that signals extreme road rage here.
In L.A., there are no stars. But smog creates the most beautiful sunsets in the world.
My cell entry for my parents is Home. When do you think you stop thinking of your hometown as Home? I thought for sure by the time I was 30 I wouldn't think of Redding as home any more, but I don't think I'll be undergoing any radical paradigm shift by January 3.
Anyway, one of the things I love about Redding is how small of a town it is. How you can't go to the grocery store without running into someone you went to school with, how your hairdresser's husband is your contractor, how your dad performed surgery on the only decent Italian restaurant's proprietor.
But lately, I've started to realize how small L.A. can be. I've run into old friends at the grocery store, seen Tobey Maguire's preggers fiancee who went to high school with a coworker at La Scala, said hello to old coworkers at a Dodgers game and at Crustacean, and ran into a date who crushed my heart at Mastro's.
It reminds you that maybe this huge, anonymous city isn't so big. That you have to maintain your character even here because your mistakes will still be staring you in the face in the check-out line.
So when I ran into my heart-crusher? Who sat right opposite me at another table, there with his firm while I was there with mine? I said hello, how are you doing.
And at school, which started again today? Even though I would rather move from classroom to classroom in an anonymous fog, pretending I don't see anyone? I say hello, how are you doing.
It's a small world. I have to be part of it, even though it's tiring and sometimes I'd really just prefer to be left alone, sitting somewhere where the only noise you hear is the occasional car down a rural road.
Posted by jen at August 21, 2006 11:14 PM
Comments
What a poignant post! I was just recently talking with my sister about our parents home. For both of us it stopped being "our home" almost as soon as we moved out and into our own grownup lives. But I have a friend who, in her 40's, still thought of her parents home as her home, at least while her mother was still living. And I agree about a "small world" even in a big city. Every now and then I run into an old ex (who I'd just as soon see fall off the face of the earth) who lives in the same area of town. That's just life, huh?
Posted by: Ai at August 22, 2006 08:22 AM
I totally agree with you. I just got back yesterday from a long weekend home in my own small town: Cody, Wyoming, population 5200 and had such a similar experience! I recognize people all around my new "home" of San Francisco, but Cody's still Home for me.
Posted by: Vickery at August 22, 2006 11:46 AM
Lovely post. I'm from Texas, and even though I haven't lived there in almost 10 years (!), I will always think of Texas as 'going home'. And I've found that most big cities are really just large small-town communities all occupying the same space - you're going to run into people and you're going to have to face your past. At least in cities it's a surprise rather than knowing that you're going to have to talk to your best friend's cousin at the ice cream stand. Keeps things interesting, I think.
Posted by: wenders at August 22, 2006 02:24 PM
What a lovely post -- and I appreciate it in the reverse: I moved from a big city where I grew up to a smallish city as a 30-something and I miss all the big city things that make you sort of blissfully anonymous when you want to be...and then small-town so you can talk to the bagel guy when you want to. Here I always run into those I would rather avoid...the X, the co-workers when I am in line at CVS, etc...Thanks, too, for the fantastic summer mix cd, which arrived today. I am grooving in my little black XA with volume waaaay up and singing along to the amusement of my fellow drivers...thanks a million!
Posted by: Katie at August 22, 2006 07:29 PM
"But smog creates the most beautiful sunsets in the world"
I dunno... We might need to have a sunset-off :)
Posted by: daniel at August 23, 2006 05:10 PM
Redding? Connecticut? If so, I agree... I'm from Orange, myself, and it's nearly the same. i.e., the electrician who worked on my parent's house was my junior-high-school music teacher's dad... and yeah, I love stars too, and don't get to see too many now that I live in NY!
Posted by: Marisa at August 30, 2006 01:31 PM