2009-11-30

L.A.

I felt strangely yesterday. I felt as if the past had come back and thrown itself over me. I took all of my old things out of my parents' closets to donate or sell or store somewhere else...to have it ready, so that we can move.
***
My first night in L.A.: I looked out the window of the airplane and saw diamonds spilling onto hills. I saw cars dashing through the sprawled-out highways. Almost like Miami, but with a different history...a different feel. I'd never been to L.A. before that day, but it felt like coming home. I got into LAX, made my way to my luggage without getting lost and without hesitating as to which way to turn. I was home.

My taxi picked me up and we sped through the wide-awake city with the cool, desert air hitting my face. It was past midnight when I got to the hotel. We passed the University and I saw "University of Southern California" embedded on the front of a large, red-brick flower bed. I saw students in red "Trojan" hoodies crossing the street. I felt something that was missing at Princeton.

I woke up to the sun sneaking in through the hotel curtain. I walked through the USC campus, only now during the daytime, and saw all the fountains and the skateboarders, the cyclists, and the other groups of students sitting and talking in various places. No one stared at me, no one cared. I felt happy. The sun was high above the sky and it felt warm but it was too dry for me to sweat. The breeze swept through my hair and I adjusted my black sunglasses and continued to float, as everyone else did.

***

L.A. will be our new home in a few months' time. It's not Sarasota with its exotic, tropical flowers and humid blanket of heat. It's definitely not Rochester, a one-time industrial giant that's seen better days. So yesterday, upon cleaning my closet, it felt real. When I left for Rochester I knew I'd be coming back...but now I'm starting a life somewhere else.

USC will be the place where I will be allowed to fashion myself into an even better scholar and thinker. I couldn't imagine being at Princeton--more grey and black, more soberness, more pale faces. I'm a person who wears pink and sapphire in the wintertime, after all.

aeka at 7:23 a.m.