i'm on my first vacation in forever. this vacation feels really special. first of all, i'm being paid by my job. second, it is my first time being in los angeles after moving in may of 2007. amazingly, it doesn't feel at all like 2+ years have passed. it's funny how well i got to know this city. and my love for la feels wildly apparent since landing at LAX. i really miss this place.
did you know la is magical? it's been raining for a few days (i used to cherish these rare precipitating moments), so when we woke up this morning everything was wet and dewy clean, smelling of soil and grass, birds and squirrels chattering about. it was like being high on 'V' juice (a true blood reference), our senses heightened, our souls light as air, absorbing the organic beauty of each detail as we strolled the eagle rock neighborhood on an early morning coffee quest.
typical la: fruit lying on the sidewalk. fruit trees prevail--lemons, grapefruits, oranges, persimmons, avocados--so it is not uncommon to see fruit littering the pavement. another common sight, though not captured on film, are the dry husks of the palm fronds, jurassic and strange, falling from the heights of these dopey spindles, like a giant, petrified feather, landing on the lawns or streets or sidewalks of this city.
what are these suessian plants? so mysterious and different than my east coast oaks and maples. succulents spread across the landscape like a yayoi kusama artwork. curlicues, swizzlesticks, fibonacci flowers, dodobirds of paradise...whispering of an extinct era where brontosauri and triceratops were the only creatures competing with the mammoth vegetation.
we picked up our coffees and continued on this quiet adventure, the only people out aside from a few homeless people and the occasional jogger. even colorado boulevard was clear of the usual traffic, blacktop still wet from the previous day's showers. we watched steam emanating from the damp tree trunks as the strong southern california sun worked to warm up the morning, a dreamy halo forming as the sun mixed with the wetness.
i photographed details along the way. more for sport than for documentation. i knew what i was experiencing couldn't be captured on my cell phone (no matter how many megapixels). i felt childish and spry, floating through space but not time, my breaths deep and pure, my energy and stride endless and invigorating.
i wonder what my companion felt, walking through memories of his youth and reminiscences about this or that house, old experiences, a child growing into an adult within these few blocks, so familiar but somehow reborn. we made it back home where the day's eyes seemed to be opening. carefully integrating back into the world of time and clocks and internet access. we're still on vacation though.
i plan on doing as much la stuff as humanly possible this week, while taking time to enjoy myself like on this morning's eagle rock stroll. things feel calm here. maybe because it's a sunday. a lot of my memories are of the oppressive sun beating down on the expansive avenues. smog and exhaust simultaneously beautifying and polluting the vistas. bumper to bumper cars on the freeways. big stores and strip malls. well, i guess there is all of that, but there's tons of other stuff too.
