Livin' in L.A

Well, I was in need of some change and the Bay Area was becoming old hat to me after nine years there. So, I quit my job, became single [this was a whole other story and it was breaking up with my recent 'ex' that was the catalyst for the other changes], grabbed my savings and moved to Los Angeles. So here I am back in Southern California and closer to where I was born & grew up the first 8 years of my life. No, I have no car, and yes I'm able to get around this city. The mass transit here isn't that bad, although the car traffic really slows the busses down.

It's weird being back down here some days when the deja vu hits because of smell, a familiar skyline or whatnot, or just something hardwired from 25 years ago. I'm suddenly that 7 year old kid standing on a crumbling pavement street lined with evergreen & eucalyptus trees, wearing cheap tennis shoes bought at Thrifty that have a toe or two sticking out, with my orange Star Wars T-shirt and dark Batman cape.
I'd stand there in the shade of the trees listening to their branches beat and rub on each other in low tones accompanied by the rustle of the leaves. Some days I would scan or climb up as many of the eucalyptus branches I could hoping to find an escaped koala bear I could befriend. I'd call him Snuffles, and he'd eats leaves from my hand and eventually he'd befriend me and follow me around.
When the carnival or circus came to town, I'd should have Snuffles trained enough to do silly, yet cute, tricks and he'd let me dress him up in a little clown costume. We'd have our own act together and would be allowed to join the circus or other nomadic showcase that liked our act. Then I could leave my real life behind me and gain true independence at last, with only Snuffles to worry about.

Back then, and even for a few years after we left California for Seattle, Washington, my brother and I were always devising some outlandish fairy tale for ourselves that normally started with us running away from home or being lost in another city. Our mother and step-father would be beside themselves with grief when they realized we were gone forever. "If only we treated them better," they'd say to each other. "I should not have tried forcing them to eat Brussel sprouts all those times." my mother would sob into the shoulder of the policeman sent to take our descriptions for the search party.
The new lives we fabricated were built up so we ended up living with some rich family for each of us. We never wanted to live together in these fantasies, yet we'd at least live close by each other and would have some cool method of transportation to visit one another.
Other times my brother and I would joke that we didn't need to run away at all. We could just stay where we were when our mother moved again, and we'd just become hobo squatters in the place we had already been living in. We'd be playing outside or with any established friends by day in case the house was being shown to prospective new renters. Then by night we'd sneak back in the the key we kept to sleep in the house. We could rummage through the garbage of a different neighborhood to find cool stuff thrown out, and sell it to kids in a different neighborhood since it was new to them for food or money.
Some of our plans were outright ridiculous and we'd barely survive half a week if we ever tried them, although it was idea of escape that gave them a magic we lacked in the day to day real life we had.

True, I did run away from my old life in the Bay Area by coming back to So-Cal. There were things I wanted to do with my art and other skills, and I was constantly putting those plans on the back burner so I could concentrate on my job and other things that were just distractions from how unhappy I was. I had reached an odd static state that did have movement, yet it was in a cycle so small I wasn't really getting anywhere other than trailing around the same spot. I had to move. I had to break into a new routine.

My old life had built up a lot of resentment for the area down here near L.A., and I need to let go of it. That's why I chose to come back down here so I could clean the slate of the prejudice that layered up. When I have my own personal transportation, I plan to go visit the old houses and apartment complexes I used to live in, if they're still there. I don't even need to stop for the visit, I just want to drive by and see what's become of the places. Are the trees I frequently climbed still standing? Are those few rows of corn I planted still there in the back yard? Was the school across the street torn down to put up a strip mall?

My old life and my new life, and the years between, are details of the same whole. Some of them need reconciling so I can put them away at last. I have a real talent for ignoring pain, yet it's hiding there under the surface just waiting for the option to manifest.