The fight with my hometown.

Or the city of Lost Angeles.

“There, in that absolutely alabaster landscape, armed with two Bessie Smith records and a typewriter, I began to try to re-create the life that I had first known as a child and from which I had spent so many years in a fight.” - James Baldwin.

This photo was taken in Hollywood in my early 20s. I found it bent up in a box, making it a perfect representation of that period of my life.

I read those words in Baldwin's book, "Nobody Knows My Name," and immediately thought of my lifelong fight with my hometown of Los Angeles. I was born under wildly different circumstances than Baldwin, of course, but the sting of his words ran deep in me. I, unlike him, came from a privileged white upper-class footloose and fancy-free environment. Though I, like him, always shied away from this born fact. It wasn’t until I left LA that I realized this attitude stemmed from a deep-rooted act of defiance and a by-product of growing up around a bunch of entitled rich kids who also came from famous offspring. I never wanted to associate with "that bunch." I never waved around that Nepo baby card they all used so freely (well, maybe to get into the clubs!).

I am grateful for those cards, don't get me wrong, especially growing up on the shores of Malibu at a time when Malibu was considered a small beach town as opposed to now with smoothies that cost 40 dollars (wtf). Back in the day, Malibu only had a few essential unpretentious stores and was inhabited by a community of surfers, hippies, and celebrities that went unnoticed. It was a time when those annual fierce dry Santa Ana winds rarely caused fires, let alone catastrophic ones. A time when life was full of innocence, playing dress up, making collages out of magazines, going on beach adventures, fishing trips, swim parties, my dad making his famous homemade dip (Lipton onion soup mix with sour cream), sleepovers with my grandparents, bedtime stories and camping out in the backyard. Ah, the good old days. When I go back to visit, in many ways, it feels as if I never left, and everyone from my past seems like they haven't even aged. I might be the only one of my childhood girlfriends who hasn't gotten Botox, but I must admit I am considering doing it now because all my childhood friends look so damn good. Facts.

One thing that changed is the bummer-to-bummer road rage-inducing traffic (the ultimate fight of all!) That's one thing I don't think I will ever embrace about that city - spending endless hours alone in your car, traveling across town, playing cheesy radio stations, and singing songs embarrassingly out of tune. It does make for a good laugh for my kids that mommy knows the words to all the inappropriate 90s rap songs and sings them loudly with glee (don't mess with mama and her love for old-school hip hop!) This scenario always spawns a debate that the old rap is poetry, and the beat and rhythm hit deep in your soul. We drive past buildings still full of adolescent memories, and I constantly start going down memory lane with stories beginning with the phrase, "When I was young… there were no cell phones or GPS, so you had to write down detailed instructions and follow a map to find your way with one eye on the directions and one eye on the road. And then, when if you inevitably got lost, you had to pull over to the nearest gas station to use a damn payphone (I don’t know how we did it!).

But alas, youth is wasted on the young, and I spent so much time trying to prove myself and not to be associated with the community from which I stemmed that I lost connection to my roots. Not to mention, my roots, race, socio-economic placement, and sex are my birthright. I had no choice in the matter; these were the cards I was dealt. I can embrace them or be in a battle because of them.

Baldwin's fight was very different than mine, but his words hit me with a searing reminder of the truth. I've written about my childhood before (link) about how I never felt uncomfortable in the fantasy world around me, hopelessly attempting to latch on to some authentic reality in the vapid city of lost angels. How I couldn't shake the sadness, the longing, the desperate desire for plastic perfection that money or fame couldn't fix. I wasn't a confident kid either, so there was that too. I didn't have a handle on myself. I was always grasping for someone or something to help me escape the overwhelming feelings of disconnection instead of just looking inward with the insight that I was the only one that could fix that gaping hole I felt inside. I was too concerned with going to the clubs and dating pretty boys, thinking that their conceited confidence carried the answers - or, more to the point, would fill the void if I conquered them (or whatever).

Anyway, all this to say, with age comes wisdom. So, as the years pass, and I have become a visitor to my hometown of Los Angeles,  I have grown a deeper appreciation of the city I was constantly sparing with, finally appreciating all that it has to offer and ultimately understanding that the judgment was not with the city itself but with myself growing up inside of it. Also, and more importantly, adolescence is a bitch no matter where you are from!