It's about 10pm on Sunday evening. I had some glorious plans to go to bed an hour ago but after some tossing and turning, I sat back up and started a blog. Haha.
Fall came to LA this weekend. I've been told it's a rare sighting and the weather channel even forecasts 90 degree days this coming week, so I have been trying to soak it all in while I can. This includes sleeping with my window open tonight and welcoming the chilly breeze. It also includes welcoming the sounds of all my neighbors in a 2 block radius. My street is essentially a row of apartment buildings and this is new to me. This means I am trying to fall asleep to various television shows (right now: Desperate Housewives and Southpark), cars speeding down the street, two people arguing, a close resident with a terrible cough, etc. I spent my last years in Nashville living in cute little neighborhoods and falling asleep to charming sounds like trains and insects whose names I never even bothered to learn. When I was back I took some time to marvel at these elements of a small(er) city life that I truly miss. I jogged through my old neighborhood that borders a real-live working mill! Jenny's house has a big porch with a perfect porch swing. One morning on my way to the studio, the sky just opened up and poured for about 10 minutes in typical Nashville fashion. It filled me with this silly kind of gratitude to just watch it all, remembering the smell of rain on warm days and the way the color of the sky changes for those 10 minutes while it thunders and yet remains blue. Nashville is perfect in the fall. Red, golds, greens, dark browns- they are everywhere and they know they are on display. On my second -to -last day in town I spent the early morning at Percy Warner park and it was just breathtaking. It was as if the trees had been saving up all their beauty and strength and were just letting loose before the sneaky winter comes in and turns everything grey. It was one of those times when you try to make a memory out of every step you take. I usually experience that when I'm travelling abroad or on a camping trip or a roadtrip or exploring a new city I've never seen. And yet there I was on a trail I pretty much know by heart. I guess there is always magic to be found.
Speaking of magic, LA for sure has its perks. I have to be honest and say that moving to LA and really loving it has totally surprised me, but love it I do. It has been humbling and gratifying to make a home in a city like this one. It is huge and sprawling and smoggy, it is scary to drive in, there are crazy people left and right. There are also a lot of awesome museums, great places to eat, landmarks up the waz, the beach, great places to hike and some of the coolest people I know. Yesterday after work I went to Venice Beach with Heather, Amir (her boyfriend) and Mohammed (his cousin). While the gents set off to surf, Heather and I rode our bikes (I know!!) on the boardwalk until we got to the Venice canals. I didn't even know these existed, but apparently Venice Beach was modeled after Venice, Italy, and as such has a series of canals with these adorable pathways and bridges and houses built all around them. Heath and I wound our way around the neighborhood in awe at this little nook of LA life that is so different from anything else I've seen here. I love making these kinds of discoveries. Living in a big city reminds you how small you are and that is comforting to me.
I started my third quarter at school last Monday and I just couldn't get over it- first I get to go to Nashville and now I get to come back to school and sing and play guitar everyday and hang out with all these ridiculous musicians? I spent a good portion of the day trying to figure out how I deserve all this and I finally concluded- I don't!! But it's here, I'm here and all I can really do is keep saying thank you and just enjoy my good fortune.
And now Corteen Place seems to have quieted- I hear only the distant murmer of 101. LA will never be Nashville, as Nashville was never the Bay Area, but what I have learned thus far is that a heart is capable of making room. It grows and expands and allows more places and people than you can imagine to feel like home.
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4 comments:
bloggers for life :) and i love that fall has hit LA just as winter has struck boulder. i love youuuuuu
A spot-on description of Nashville in autumn!
The last two sentences of this blog almost made me cry. Sheesh Sue, can you stop almost making me cry (or actually making me cry) with the beautiful things you say/sing? Actually, on second thought, please never stop making me cry in this way. The crying comes from the words feeling so personally true that they feel as if they could be my own words, except they are said in a way I had never thought to say them before, and that is what art is supposed to do, I think. It is supposed to move us, and make us aware that our hearts are not alone in their feeling. You do that for me all the time, so thank you! Oh and P.S. Drove around the above mentioned old neighborhood with Lane today...missed your mug like a shark misses his shack.
welcome to blog city. what is this nonsense about not being a writer? you're one of the best writers i know . . . and i know a lot! thank you for noticing the weather and the trees and the sounds and the little things that get us through life. and thanks for inspiring me to start blogging again! love you keels, always and always.
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