My Letter To Los Angeles

Dear Los Angeles,

I've been thinking about you a lot lately. With these cloudy days and long winters I think about you all the time. Your golden sunsets, your evergreen palm trees, your cool ocean breezes on the west side. I miss you so much.

We haven't been together for a long time. Feels like only yesterday I was packing my apartment preparing to move out East, kicking and dragging my feet the whole way because I didn't want to leave you. Comparing my new digs to you just made life harder. No place seems to measure up to your sparkle, your energy, your know-all, your have-all ways.

Even now in Seattle, such a beautiful vibrant city, I long for you. It seems time has been kind to me as I only remember the good times. The Valley in the balmy evenings of summer, the romance of the Arclight Dome with its gourmet popcorn and Bon-Bons. Walking up the residential street after dark toward The Greek Theater where I could hear Jack White and his Airline guitar screaming into a crowd I would soon be standing among. Mornings at Wild Card boxing gym, seeing Freddie's smile. Jogs in the clean air and sunshine of Beverly Hills. Parties and rice pilaf at Amy Wade's animal-filled apartment. The Peninsula Hotel and spa staff  that became my source of pride. Drives to my dad's place in Ventura, the perfect city.  The religion of Playhouse West acting school. The contagious, palatable energy that buzzes in the air! Rolling around in your sand and staying up late, driving through Hollywood up into the fragrant hills, sneaking over the Mulholland fence, looking at all the bright stars in the night sky and dreaming of being one of them. Meeting my forever friends Josh D., Tyler D., Daryl M., and my love Paul. Many fond memories in every corner of the city.

 Oh and the food! The banana strawberry pancakes at Vivians Cafe, the chicken dinner plate with plantains at Bossa Nova, Tito's Tacos (not the burritos), The pineapple milkshakes at Astro Burger, Larchmont Pizzaria with THE best pepperoni pizza in ALL of L.A., Jamba Juice, Casa Bianca with their amazing pizza pies and salads - and where four of my family members went on their first date, Senor Fish downtown with the best fish tacos, Phillippe's french dip sandwiches, Nick's hole-in-the-wall diner on Pico where Cliff would make me the best not-on-the-menu Elvis shakes, Paquito Mas, Cafe 101 with the orgasm inducing chocolate brownie waffle sundae (and also the place where Scotty C. and gang would eat late after his plays - it's a whole thing.) Cafe La Brea with delish risottos, the cheap but hearty eats at Magnolia Grill, the blue corn enchiladas at El Cholo, a #13 and a Sunrise at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, the chicken sun-dried tomato pasta at Spamoni's in Santa Monica, California Fresh, and of course, a Double-Double- protein style- animal style with a strawberry shake at In N Out. These are things I love most about you.

But you know what? I need you to know something. Thinking about you actually makes me UNhappy.   I just realized, I've got countless grand memories of being with you but when I think about them they only make me sad.

All this time I thought it was because I wasn't with you.

But that's not why I get sad at all! It's because you make me feel like I suck. If only I did everything I could to be good enough, to be with you again, you could make me better. But you know what? It's not me. It's you. You suck. You really do. You're a fraud and a liar and you only root for the winning team. I thought I was messed up and for awhile, sure, I was. But your people, the majority of those who feed you and keep you warm and keep your gears nice and oiled are pretty miserable too and everyone is scared. Why is everyone scared in LA? I felt pretty safe living there, but that's not the kind of fear I'm speaking of. People in LA are downright afraid of everyone. Most of all themselves. Toxic! And you get away with it L.A. because you dress empty desperation and discontent in the guise of hope and hard work.

I mean think about it: People with deep emotional needs not being met, with intense desires to be cherished, appreciated, recognized, celebrated, and those needs never NEVER being met (or worse, being met only temporarily and then having to start over) these people all flock to the same place- every one of them needing years of psychotherapy (and sometimes medication)- fighting over jobs that aren't available to them, unable to afford the cost of living, disillusioned by talents they don't possess, including finding a parking spot at the grocery store, getting $70 street sweeping parking tickets once a week, traffic, not speaking the same languages, the extreme levels of poverty and wealth, extreme differences of class and social acceptance, the vacuous, anchorless, sex-obsessed culture, thriving on the basis of exclusion?! You're going to tell me that LA isn't a town of nutjobs?!

Now readers: don't even start in on how wonderfully diverse you think the "melting pot" is unless you can honestly claim you love living in Korea Town and you enjoy taking leisurely drives through Compton on Sunday afternoons. And don't go leaving me comments saying, "I live in LA and there are lot of sane, normal, nice people here." Because that's a total exaggeration. Maybe you know 3 people like that. And they live in Thousand Oaks or Pasadena. So that doesn't even count.

I'm not talking about the nice families you know. I'm talking about the world outside. When you climb into your car and go to the grocery store, The Grove, the gas station, a restaurant. The everyday things you experience. I walk out my door in Seattle and it's, "Hi how are you? Beautiful day isn't it? My what lovely children you have." And in LA it's, "What. What do you want from me? Why are you talking to me? Get away from me. Don't look at me." I didn't realize it was so bad until I moved away. Paul likes to laugh at remembering my feverish reactions to the LA grocery store checkers back when we lived there. When I would forget my Ralph's clubcard and they wouldn't give me the sale prices, at times I became so angry, I literally had to keep myself from cussing them out and causing them physical harm. Because of a freaking club card. That's just the way life was then. Those are the feelings LA fosters. Those are the kinds of experiences that make you not want to go outside. Or in order to do so, you must first put on a layer of skin so thick you don't feel anything.

Over time you forget what's normal. When I lived in LA I thought LA was the world. It moves faster than the rest of the world and therefore is ahead of the pack. How embarrassing if you live somewhere else and get left behind.

In all honesty L.A., I've lived away from you for four years now and I feel 88% detoxified from all the garbage I used to believe. But unfortunately, because I lived there for so long, and bought into all your Hollywood junk, the industry expectations, the so called "rules" of you can/you can't, the lifestyle, the fighting, the fear... I still have that. I still allow myself at times to be driven and motivated by all that. My creative goals, part of my self worth, is still definitely measured by your invisible standards. It makes me sick.... but unfortunately it's true. I lived there for almost nine years. A lot of this stuff really sunk in. But nobody is telling me anymore who I should be, how I should be it. I don't talk to anyone, ever, who says, "This is the way it is." So the worst part of all this is the only person who feeds me daily doses of bullsh*t now is myself. (with of course, contributions from Facebook and Google News.) 

So Los Angeles, what I'm trying to tell you is...that I don't need you. You need to back off and shut the hell up. Of course I want you, I want all those beautiful moments that we had at the beginning of this letter. But I don't need you. Because you make me unhappy at the very thought of you. You make me think that I am incapable of doing great things. You cause me to covet things that I don't have and don't need and you encourage me to loath what I do have. And. That. Is. Wrong. That's so wrong! Because what I have and what I can do is extraordinary.

Maybe in the future we can be friends again and I can swim in your ocean and you can teach people how to speak without using phrases like "totally organic" and "I really needed to transcend!" In the meantime, get out of my head and leave me alone.

Sincerely,
Rachel