Oh, Los Angeles.  Thank goodness.  I see you as I crest the hill.

Who would have thought that the sight of you would ease my sadness?

Certainly not me. The only way to survive that first year was by swallowing a pill.

Looking at your streets, that first year, I saw nothing but madness.

Ugly. Loud.  Hostile.  Stupid, even.  Mean.

When did that change?  Was there a single instant?  I don’t think so.

How does an unwanted, disliked place become home?  For me?  My home?

One little step at a time.  A stride on the hillsides, olive green.

A stride down a side street, where a fence holds up bougainvillea all aglow.

A stride in Venice, a stride in Hollywood, a stride in the arroyo—a never-ending roam!

 

From hate and loathing to love.  This is my rom-com.

I tried to hold you at bay, Los Angeles, because of your uncouth ways,

But you have your charms, damn you!  And, damn it! I love that palm

The one that stands impossibly thin and impossibly tall as it sways, sways.

And you wait.  Some people will go on hating.  Some people will love.

You wait for the decision.  Hate me, you ask.  Love, me?

Ah, whatever you want, you say.  It’s cool, you say.  We’re cool.

Confident of your overt ugliness and sneaky beauty.  Proud of.

That’s the thing!  I had to learn how to really look so that I might see.

You are my teacher.  You are my school.

 

Now I see as I sit driving my car (of course I’m driving my car)

I see your abundant, unstoppable sunshine in my children’s hair,

There in the rearview mirror.  They want to know, are we far?

We’ve been driving for so long.  Hours and hours to get there,

Which is to say, here!  Home, where our lives wait.

Where my husband waits.  Where I have a house with a sycamore tree

Where two dogs, one ebullient and hungry, the other aged and wary,

Run and dig and shit and bark with authority at my gate.

You contain all these things for me in your sprawling body from mountain to sea

Rambler.  Thief.  Angel.  Seemingly infinite, unabridged dictionary.