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... or my complicated love affair with the city of angels
I just walked in the door from a long walk in the neighborhood with my dog. We have a few routes that we cycle through, and today it was a walk to the Pan Pacific park, where Mala chases the squirrels and pees on every single patch of grass (I thought only male dogs do that!?); from there walk to one of my favorite LoCal coffeeshops in the area, and returning back home. I like this route very much mostly because I don’t have to sit in the crazy morning traffic in order to get to a park (this can be considered a privilege when you live in LA).
This route mostly takes us through large, noisy and dirty concrete streets of Los Angeles, with a few patches of grass along the way. I am staying in Mid-city these days, a part of LA called Miracle Mile. It is a home to LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and SAG-AFTRA, a national union that represents actors, journalists, dancers etc., to name just a few landmarks. However cultured and miraculous this all may sound, don’t be fooled. This part of LA (like many other areas lately) is surprisingly dirty, populated with concrete buildings, endless on-going constructions and road blocks; it is filled with homeless population and trash, and it smells like tar, concrete, urine and human feces. This, of course, does not stop the rental market increasing significantly and consistently, but that’s not a topic of today’s share.
I used to love LA. I never romanticized of Hollywood and being a part of entertainment industry; I just kind of ended up here. During my time in LA, I have lived in its many diverse neighborhoods throughout the years - impoverished and upbeat Mar Vista, stylish and queer West Hollywood, dirty and edgy Hollywood, and, as of lately, Miracle Mile. I have considered LA one of my homes and I used to think of it as a space with a strong support system for me, a place where I can be myself, a place where I can find anything I need, but most importantly my people, community, safe space. This is the city where I got sober, and stepped into one of the biggest life transitions. I used to love the everyday grind, the edginess of this city, and even the nonstop traffic and noise (it added to the city’s vibrancy). The quality (or rather inferiority) of air did not bother me either.
So, what happened? This time, for the first time, something has changed. Something shifted in my relationship with Los Angeles. You know when all the things you loved about a lover all of a sudden start to annoy you and repulse you? When their spontaneity you start perceiving as laziness, their free spirit as negligence, and their boundlessness as overwhelm. That’s what’s happening. It might be time to reconsider my commitment to this city. When would be an ideal time to leave a relationship, I wonder.
After twelve years I spent in the US (and six of those in Los Angeles), I have left this country in 2018 in a search of something distinct and more fulfilling. I spent almost five years in Southeast Asia (primarily Thailand and Bali, Indonesia), and lived remarkably different life. Life in a third world country will teach you many things; how to be modest and need very little; how to forget about conveniency and embrace uncertainty and organized chaos instead, how to appreciate simplicity, minimalism, budgeting, and the true meaning and importance of community and shared resources. I wanted a simpler life when I left United States. A life without a rat race and with less money, but more time to pause, be still, reflect, feel, live, contemplate, and just be. A life with less work and fewer distractions, free of things to acquire and achieve, and more quality time in nature, resting, reflecting. And that is what I received. It felt so good; just what my life is meant to be.
I guess I just never thought that after taking a break from Southeast Asia and coming back to US, I will so strongly feel the ambiguity of my relationship with the West, and specifically Los Angeles, for that matter. Lately I have been questioning everything, trying to analyze and find the reasons for feeling this way, but there is nothing specific to point at - except of the feeling in my gut and the grief around the loss. As I am writing this, I am happy and excited, and at the same time I feel a kind of calm and serenity, about this inner knowing that I will be leaving LA, that I might never come back here, and that it is perfectly OK to do and feel all that is present for me.
Overall, none of this really matters. What matters is simply an acceptance of change, as such. I have changed, and therefore, my preferences, priorities, values changed. LA changed too. And change is fundamental to being alive; but it is also so uncomfortable and often we will do anything to ensure that our life feels safe and cozy, even if, in reality, it is static and decaying. All change, all growth, assumes the death of the old; old pattern, habit, behavior or old preference. And, as much as the death is excruciating, it instigates change.
But how is this related to recovery at all, maybe you wonder? Well, there is an important moment in recovery, a shift to say, that (hopefully) all of us who get sober face at one point. And that is a shift in personal values and beliefs. That is a moment where we need not only need to (re)consider our values, but also make a choice of what kind of life we want to live - one that aligns with our personal values, beliefs and ethics, or one that doesn’t align with them. My values (thankfully) changed drastically in sobriety. My beliefs, as well as ethics and morals, changed too. Just as I no longer could have dated emotionally unavailable men and those who have been involved with others, so I could no longer see a value in staying in a job(s) I disliked, working long hours or multiple jobs, only to make just enough money to pay my bills. I could no longer justify overpriced rent, ridiculous (and mandatory) health insurance policies, gas and grocery prices, and a constant pressure from the outside to get more, reach for more, acquire more, become more, all the while the internal dissatisfaction and discontent with my life are taking the toll on me. That’s when I left LA, and the culture that promoted values very different from my own.
So, in reality, nothing’s wrong. All is well. I just don’t feel like I used to feel in the past. As one of my dearest Dharma teachers, Lama Marut, used to say “It is like this right now.” It is like this right now, and I don’t have to desperately try to fight and resist it; this feeling, this change. I can be here (in LA) as long as I need and want to be; and then, when the time is right, I will leave. Not run away from it like I have done many times in the past. But, leave in peace and good faith. And with gratitude and sweet memories. With this deep inner knowing that things are the way they are supposed to be.
On a more personal level, in this process of frequently moving and changing places, I always get very curious about how this duality of liking and disliking shows up in me, and in my predispositions. Oh, just how much I have tendency to say “I like this” and “ I don’t like that”. But, I am also embracing the possibility that me being here (in LA) right now is supposed to teach me something about myself. As The Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen teaches us, “To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind … The Way is perfect as vast space is perfect, where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.”
All is well in this moment.
I might not like you that much anymore, LA. I will, however, always love you; from the distance.
