Los Angeles

I love Los Angeles. I find the palms amusing and like the people, tall and elegant, and on the verge of snapping. 

A college friend and I once spoke about how much we’ve grown to love the city. “It feels haunted everywhere,” he said and laughed. I felt something bloom under my skin when he said this. In the way whiskey burns your insides after even the smallest sip, it was a warm shiver, comforting, but also exhilarating. He put into words what I’d been feeling since I was a child visiting my Grandpa in Encino at his large one story house on Skytop Lane. I used to be terrified of his candlelit wine cellar. I believed the black staircase never stopped descending. I was so afraid of misstepping in the dim light because I imagined I’d never stop falling. Eventually there was probably a pit of human bones from all who fell to their demise.

My grandpa would tell me stories of LA in the 40s and 50s. He and my Grandma were always attending premieres and following celebrities around. 

Los Angeles is only 240 years old. It’s also a mega city and has been overpopulated for many years. But history just isn’t driving this notion of it being haunted. Of course there are ghosts in this city, but that’s not what my friend meant, at least that’s not the way I believe it to mean.

Today I took a drive to Hollywood to attend an art show in the hills at a mansion next door to Chateau Marmount. Beneath the lush and extravagantly architected Hollywood hills are the ants that crawl underneath. The “Star Sightings” Hollywood bus slowly makes its way up the hill on the narrow street, carrying tourists and their precious cargo of hopes and dreams.

People came to the west and to Los Angeles for many reasons, and they still keep coming here with their dreams. But what happens to the dream when it dies? Like an eager child, I descend the spiral staircase of the cellar, hoping not to misstep and fall, fall, fall, and find out.