Noticing (LA)

We're spending a couple of days in LA. I used to come every few months in the early 2000s, until my mother died in 2008. Since then I've avoided the place, even though it's but a five-hour drive—the last visit may have been for a good friend's (old boyfriend's) wedding (his first: he was 64), or possibly for an exhibit at the Getty, one of my employers. 

I have a love-hate relationship with LA: it's home (well, Santa Monica is/was, forty years ago), it's a fascinating place full of culture and life. It's also full of traffic, some of it going way too fast—when it's not going 0 miles an hour. And the trash—this visit, I've noticed so much trash. I expect most of it is courtesy of wind, either weather-inspired or generated by rushing cars. But it feels discouraging. 

This morning we walked a couple of blocks from our motel to a Starbucks, and in the 405 underpass passed by a body under a cloth sleeping bag, plastic bags of belongings stacked nearby. On our transit back to the hotel, he hadn't moved. I wondered if he was dead, wanted to reach down and touch his naked ankle and make sure it was warm, but of course didn't. We reckoned we'll find out on tomorrow's coffee run. 

I do not say this to be cheeky or callous. I say it because I feel a certain anomie, distance, separateness in this "town." There is so much rushing, past, through, around. Though I know, too, that there are plenty of pockets of homely, peaceful quiet and neighborliness. You just don't see them as easily when you're an outsider looking in.

Though yes, on our various outings these last days—to dinner with family in Beverly Hills, to visit friends in Mar Vista, geocaching in the Valley—I did notice lovely details. And although I forgot to take pictures of the friends and family, I did take a few shots of the other loveliness. 

Oh, but wait: my niece's husband, Terry, posted this picture of our family dinner on Facebook, so I can end with that (from left to right, niece Erica, David, my brother Jim, moi, Erica's daughter Kimberley, and my sister-in-law Cathy—with Terry reflected in the mirror):