No. 6: Date With an Old Flame

and some fun home decor hacks

First: Hi to my new subscribers! I know a lot of you are here because of my piece on ADHD, and I’ll publish an update on that very soon (like, probablyyy next week.)

Second: This is a long one, so if you’re reading it via email, you may need to click “expand” at the end to get the whole thing.

I’ve spent the past few days circling the topic of this piece, trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to say. For me, this is the hardest part of writing a personal essay versus, say, brand copy or fiction—there’s no one else (a client, a character) to tell me what the point is. I have to find it all by myself (and if you’re thinking that a character is made-up so they can’t actually help, I encourage you to read this conversation between Molly Wizenberg and Rachel Khong.) 

As luck would have it, this morning, I opened Caroline Cala Donofrio’s latest piece, about her decision to leave New York City. It struck a chord, sounding an echo in my brain. 

“Remember this?” It said, and then: “Remember this.”

actual photos that I took

Last week, I took a solo trip to Los Angeles for a sort of hybrid writing retreat/inspiration safari/rest and it was bliss. I spent my days at the desk in my hotel room, which overlooked a busy little part of Venice Beach; walking around my old haunts, taking notes and photos; and basically doing whatever the fuck I wanted, when I wanted for the first time in four years.

While I did get a decent chunk of writing done, I’ll admit the activity took a backseat to the others. I don’t regret it. It was five years since I last visited, and nearly twelve since I moved away. I’d been feeling homesick, and also in need of fresh inspiration (my novel is set in LA.) As my flight landed, stormy weather yanked at the plane, and I braced myself for change—for well-worn corners to feel foreign, for disorientation, for crotchety inner tantrums of “this was better when…” But those didn’t come. Instead, as my Lyft driver drove from LAX to my hotel in a downpour, sheets of water blurring my view, I was overcome with an unexpected, halcyon relief. I was home. When I lived in LA, I loved rainy days.

It’s not where I’m originally from, nor is it where I live now. And yet, LA has a hold on me that I struggle to articulate. Over the course of my trip, a handful of strangers asked whether I was local or visiting—and each time, I fumbled my response. Saying “I used to live here” didn’t feel enough. Millions of people used to live in LA. Millions of people treat the city like a wishing well, adding their penny to the pile as they pass through. I wanted so badly to be different from the rest, for my cent to be picked by whoever makes the rules. I still feel the phantom limb, the unrequited squeeze. “I used to live here,” yes, but also: “I was madly in love.”

playing around with Pinterest’s new collage feature

I first moved to LA when I was sixteen. My acting coach and manager had moved back after a stint in my hometown, where we met. She was trying to convince me to become emancipated and get my GED so that I could skip the rest of my childhood and go straight to Hollywood. In a shocking turn of events, my parents agreed to a trial run, allowing me to temporarily move across the ocean to see what it would be like. My late paternal grandparents made this possible by renting a furnished apartment in Toluca Lake for the summer (they normally lived in South Florida, with all the other Jewish grandparents) and sharing it with me. Their presence ensured that I had adult supervision, but I still remember that season as one of great freedom. I was the youngest in my acting class, which took place on the CBS lot. I had lunch meetings with talent agents and producers and casting directors. I flirted with boys at the mall, and spent long evenings by the pool of our apartment complex, drinking with the other teen actors (the place was crawling with us) and a famous hip hop group from the ‘90s. I felt so cool, so adult—and even though it would be two years before I’d move to LA for real (because I chose to finish high school first, like a fucking nerd) it stuck to me that summer; it sunk into my skin, an invisible tattoo. The sort of person I wanted to be and the sort of life I wanted to live and the sparkly sprawl of Los Angeles were intertwined, impossible to untangle.

It was also summer, many years later, when the spell broke—an odd detail to remember, since seasons are practically undetectable in LA, but I do. I was in my late twenties, slogging through a brutal Saturn Return that had me questioning all of my life choices. I was in shambles—but I was acting in a play alongside a woman slightly older than me who had what I so desperately wanted: a recurring role on a network show. I was the lead in the play, but she was the name. The fact that we were working together, and that my role was bigger than hers, was the only thread I had left to cling to—the one thing that “proved” I was headed in the right direction, despite rapidly mounting evidence to the contrary. And then the thread broke. Her show was canceled. 

I remember that it was summer, and I remember the expression on her face when she said the words that chilled me to my core: “You’re just constantly starting over. It never ends. It never gets easier.”

Around the same time, in the midst of great mental turmoil, I visited a close friend in Colorado and had an epiphany: I could just leave. I could live an easier life. I just had to leave. It came to me like that John Green quote: “slowly, and then all at once.”

I fled quickly, giving my roommate notice and shoving everything I owned into a storage unit in the Arts District before I had a chance to change my mind. I knew that I could talk myself into staying, and that I had to leave. For reasons obvious and unknowable at the time, I had to leave. I had to find an easier life, and it wasn’t in LA.

I’ve now lived in Denver for as long as I lived in LA (a fact that doesn’t seem like it could possibly be true, but the numbers don’t lie.) And yet, it still doesn’t feel like home to me the way LA did, or does. I don’t know that it ever will. I don’t know that it matters. My relationship to my current city is very different—less a passionate affair, more a quiet friendship. I’m content here—but I’d be lying if I said I don’t still daydream about my old flame. I mean, my husband gave me several days off from parenting, to go wherever I wanted, and we both just automatically assumed that I’d choose LA—and then, when I came home, he asked if I was happy to be home AND I PAUSED.

He said: “It’s okay to say no.”

I said: “I mean, I am…but.”

When I’m there, I can’t remember why I left. I can’t remember a single bad thing that happened; a single bad day; a single thing that isn’t better there. The traffic isn’t that bad, I tell myself; worth it for the weather and the food and the culture, the ocean breeze. We’d just live in a walkable neighborhood. We both have remote jobs, Arlo loves the beach. I wonder what a three-bedroom house with a yard costs these days in—<record scratch> Oh. Right.

I loved living in LA, even when it annoyed the hell out of me. I loved living in a city of storytellers, artists—a place where on any given day, you could accidentally wind up in a music video. The city is bizarre—a bug zapper that attracts iridescent, winged insects that will drink your blood if you’re not paying attention. It’s an easy city to make fun of, an easy city to hate. They say it has no culture—and yet, culture reverberates from LA like rings in a glassy-eyed pond. There is a magic there that does not exist anywhere else, and that’s precisely what I had to leave.

I couldn’t leave acting without leaving LA, and I had to leave acting. It was time; I was spent. I’d made some miscalculations and lost momentum and was starting to feel old in an industry where old equals dead. It wasn’t going to work out for me, and I knew that I should get out while I was still young enough to get good at something else. I feared I couldn’t do that while still surrounded by my unrealized dreams; if I could see them, I’d reach for them. I’d wind up like one of the tattered women along the Venice Boardwalk, screaming the same monologue that’s been on a loop for years.

I often wonder what a life there now would be like, not in The Industry, raising my son. Honestly, it would probably be awful—everything there is a hassle. And for so many reasons, Denver makes more sense for my family right now. And yet, despite the absurdity, I still fantasize about buying an original 1920’s Spanish in Los Feliz, with citrus trees and a pool. Which brings me to…

My Hack For Finding New Home Decor Inspiration
A friend recently asked if I knew of any secret sources for design inspiration, aside from the usual suspects, and it made me realize that not everyone does this.

• Go to your real estate website of choice (I like Redfin.)

• Look up a city that has a lot of the architectural style you’re looking for—Victorian, mid-century modern, colonial, craftsman, etc. (If you don’t know, start by googling “US city with a lot of ___ architecture.”)

• Set parameters for price, decades built (this part is very important if you want to be historically accurate; don’t blindly trust anything written in the realtor’s description) and any special features (i.e. built between 1960-1980 with a front porch.)

• Filter, click, enjoy!

random sampling from a recent Redfin search for Spanish architecture in LA

This is my favorite way to find solutions for specific design problems, and inspiration for updates that remain true to the style of the home. (I hate when a house looks like it’s trying to be something that it’s not.) For example, my home is a 1940s “minimalist traditional” with a tiny bit of Spanish influence that I’m leaning into. So I routinely browse Spanish- and Southwestern-style bungalows in LA, Santa Fe and (if I’m feeling fancy) Santa Barbara, looking for attainable and interesting ways to amp up the charm.

The best part is that (even though they’re very often staged to sell) these are real people’s homes, with quirks and personal touches and images you’re unlikely to find all over Instagram. This is also a good way to stay up-to-date on trends, if that’s something that matters to you. I hope you find it interesting or useful or fun.

P.S. Here’s another simple home decor hack that I did not think of myself, but wish I had!