LOOKING BACKWARD, FORWARD, DOWNWARD & UPWARD

I fight back the tears as soon as I leave my friends’ house. Not an emotional wreck but something is bubbling up. I need to keep some semblance of control. I don’t want the person on the other side of the gas pump island to freak out. What’s his problem? Not that she notices me at all. It’s a quick pit stop. She’s on her way to work or to fight for a parking spot while doing last-minute Christmas shopping.

I restart the car. Colbie Caillat, that hippy chick from Malibu sings “Realize”, adding to the Southern California ambience. They really like her here. She sang “Brighter Than the Sun” as I parked under a palm tree on a quick grocery run after my plane landed at LAX three days ago.

My eyes well up again as I merge onto the 405, heading toward Santa Monica. It’s fatigue, I tell myself. A college bowl game, a day at Disneyland, sleeps in strange beds,...so many excuses. Except on this morning I feel more rested than I have in months. Apparently that smoggy L.A. air is good for my soul. I drive down windy Sunset Boulevard towards Pacific Palisades, the chic village between Santa Monica and Malibu where I used to live in a bright pink multi-unit building now blanched white. At least the ever-blooming bougainvilleas remain to cover most of the lower facade.

For a year, this was my haven. I could access all that Los Angeles had to offer and then retreat to this sleepy neighborhood where nannies chauffeured impeccably dressed toddlers in the newest Mercedes models. I cannot spot any caregivers today. Maybe they’ve been given a few days off for Christmas. Maybe they are the ones tasked with scouring The Beverly Center to pick up an extra something now that Uncle Lloyd is bringing his new girlfriend to the turkey dinner. I do not see any children at all. The sidewalk is stroller free. Maybe there are Christmas and Hanukkah camps tucked away in one of the canyons to entertain the kiddies.

I am composed now as I type on my laptop in a Starbucks that didn’t exist in this space twenty years ago. What was it? A restaurant? Doesn’t really matter. Gone, forgotten. I am sandwiched between two other laptop users. As I gaze at toward Sunset two other men punch keys on their laptops. They’re all writers, aren’t they? This is Greater Los Angeles where everyone is working on a screenplay.

My competition.

I peek to my left. They white guy with the ‘60s afro isn’t typing a thing. He’s surfing a police website after two officers approached him and directed him to stop smoking his tobacco pipe outside the neighboring retail space. He still simmers with anger. If he is a writer, his day is shot. One of the fellows across from me has stopped typing. He plays with the cursor, sips from an empty coffee cup. Writer’s block.

Maybe I have a shot. I must focus on my own work instead of (literally) looking over my shoulder. Do I want to return here? As evidenced only an hour earlier, I can be a little too fragile. I will face a lot of rejection. I will be summarily dismissed as the gray pokes through my dyed sideburns. My ego will be bruised and abused.

But I want this. My heart beats loud and fast. It may be the caffeine kicking in, but I prefer to attribute it to desire. Yes, I want this. I want my chance.

All of this feels right. It is home. I cannot move yet. The INS and the gloomy real estate market back home control the timing of my relocation. Still, this brief visit gives me resolve. In the meantime, I can write anywhere. As my own coffee is done, I am off to the other side of Sunset to settle in for a chopped salad at my old deli hangout. It used to be my Wednesday morning stop where I would load up on bottomless passion fruit iced tea and cheap buttermilk pancakes. The old awning is gone. The name has changed from Mort’s to Lenny’s. It is more upscale. Still, it remains a deli and there is just enough that is familiar to help me settle in. I have to rewrite the ending to my latest screenplay project. Having worked through the mixed emotions of returning here, it will be a productive day.

THE URBAN ITCH

From October 4:

It’s the weekend and my morning starts couldn’t be more different. On Saturday, I drove into the city to tour some neighborhoods I’d been told were hip and affordable. Turned out to be an urban myth, of course. The first area had four businesses on a single block and that was it. Not even a convenience store to pick up the morning paper or a café to get the heart pumping. I’m learning that the word like can be cruelly deceiving. The Glebe is a vibrant part of Ottawa. Other neighborhoods like the Glebe don’t measure up. As much as I’ve taken myself out of the mix by living full-time in a rural setting, I know that I can’t settle for a quasi happening area in the city if I should decide to return to civilization.

I had a couple of other neighborhoods to check out, but when I got back in the car I ended up back in the Glebe. And happy. I picked up a bagel at Kettleman’s to fortify myself and wandered Bank Street, browsing at the storefronts before stopping in a magazine shop and going bonkers on picking out a stack of specialty magazines along with the newspaper. (Urban deprivation takes its toll on the credit card.)

A bagel, plenty of reading material…next stop coffee. My favorite café was so packed, there wasn’t a seat to be found. I heard two mug toting patrons who were searching for a place to settle say, “It’s so loud, I can’t even think.” She said it like it was a bad thing. I soaked in some hip immersion just walking through and moved on to the next possibility only half a block away. Choices! Yes, Dorothy, we’re not in The Sticks anymore. It wasn’t ideal as the only table was beside two screaming preschoolers and their parents who desperately took in the adult hustle and bustle while ignoring the muffin tossing that accompanied their two adorable toddlers, both up and coming Ultimate Fighters. I took my chances, thinking the public spectacle would send the young family on its way in ten minutes or less. (I bet right! Wish I had more luck on the lottery. I’d gladly trade in another half hour of kiddie mayhem for a cool mil. Alas. I’ll take my winnings where I can find them.)

Forty-five minutes later and I was off to Westboro, another happening zone in Ottawa, one that requires a bit more walking than the Glebe. After parking the car, I had to walk down two blocks of seedy folks frequenting a bowling alley and a thrift store and spilling out onto the street for cigs and a lover’s quarrel, with the dueling couple keeping a half block between them as they shouted unpleasantries. Yikes. Not the kind of urban action I wanted to stumble across.

Fortunately, the walk improved as I strolled by chic boutiques for the young mom crowd, bistros, coffeehouses and a magnificent Jewish deli that reminded me of an old hangout, Mort’s in Pacific Palisades, California.

At one time, city life stressed me out—battles for parking, traffic lights (always red, no?!) on every corner and lines in every store. I’ll never idealize the traffic issues, but the rest of the urban busyness on this day calmed and excited me at the same time.

Now it’s Sunday morning and I’m writing this while in a small town Laundromat fifteen minutes away from the family cottage. It’s a happening spot on this particular day, but the Laundromat is one place I don’t want to find a crowd. Sorry, but I have a bit of a hangup folding my underwear in public. I don’t have Kermit the Frog on my boxers or, worse, a flaming red thong, but still, we’re talkin’ undies. And small town. Those scenes of encountering some dreamy dude at the adjacent dryer and having him hand you a renegade sock you dropped don’t happen here. It’s all dowdily dressed moms who keep darting out for another cig break. Nothing like a fresh scent of second hand smoke seeping into my stack of clean clothes. The husbands that come along remain in their pickup trucks listening to Classic Rock, waiting for the women to finish their work. (The one man who ventured in, bragged about how good his three-year-old daughter was a sweeping the kitchen. Nothing like a proud father.)

Saturday, an urban rush; Sunday, pickups in the sticks. There is no comparison.

My rural days may be numbered.