a lavender puddle of sticky petals

Today I realize that I live in Los Angeles. I’ve been trying tirelessly to incorporate the word “jacaranda” into a song, but am worried it won’t sing well. Maybe I can just describe it, something about a lavender puddle of sticky petals. When I’m having a difficult time writing songs, I am synonymously having a difficult time enjoying songs. But without fail, I always enjoy jazz. I recently acquired Ella Fitzgerald with the London Symphony Orchestra on CD, I listen to it in the blue Ford Focus while I drive around. The car is the legal property of my girlfriend Erin, who works from nine to six today. I’ve been playing house for the past few months of unemployment, cooking meals from a vegan cookbook, vacuuming, reading in the bath, and mostly, working on music, all while missing Erin terribly while she’s away. For the first two years of my living in L.A., I was without a car. I have endured my fair share of trips on the gold line to yoga and vintage shopping. Since having the ability to drive wherever I want whenever I want, I’ve done more exploring of the city than I had in two years. Today, I’m wearing a pair of baggy overalls, a white blouse, blue chiffon socks, boots, and two gold rings. I pour ice, black tea concentrate, and oat milk into a glass jar that previously held jam, stirring it with a bamboo straw Declan got me at a zero waste market in Denver. It sits beside me in the cup holder. On the passenger seat is a sweatshirt that smells like Erin, my purse, and my copy of Black Swans by Eve Babitz. I begin my Ella accompanied drive to Griffith Park to meet Grace, Jared, and JC. I take the 134 West. I remember seeing the view from that freeway for the first time so vividly; I was 18. I’d just moved, and was heading to a party in North Hollywood with my fashionably older partner, where I made a drunken fool of myself in perfect L.A. style. The sun was setting in the distance, casting a warm glow on the hills, the downtown buildings, every nook and cranny of the city. I feel just as floored by it now, annoyed at the fact that I am behind the wheel and can’t truly bask in all its glory from the passenger seat. Ever since that moment, I have been granted brief periods where I truly feel like an L.A. cool girl. The type of Old Hollywood glamor they write novels about. I separate myself from the social media “influencers” and UCLA cheerleaders and soulless wannabe superstars. I am here as a writer, I came here to take from this character of a city what I can and then I will leave it in the dust. I will let strangers at the Chateau Marmont buy my mocktails and I will cry in the children's section of Skylight Books and I will buy roses from pedestrians while waiting in traffic on Los Feliz Boulevard. Grace, Jared, JC and I walk from the parking lot of Griffith Park to the observatory. Sometimes it all seems so surreal, and other times it feels like I’ve always been here, like there was nowhere else I was ever going to be. I can imagine a version of myself in the future reminiscing on my twenties in Southern California. I wonder if Erin and I will buy a house here, or if it will all be a distant memory when we’re in another city. But none of that matters right now, when I’m taking in the view with beautiful friends I’ve made in my adulthood. When I’m driving back home, the traffic is horrendous. With my foot on the brake, I read pages of Black Swans at the red light. I entertain an internal debate of if we should go out tonight in West Hollywood, It’s a Saturday and you’re 21 and We could cuddle and watch that Anne Hathaway movie. I love getting on the 110 North from the 5, there’s never anyone but me heading that way and I know I’ve almost made it home. I stop at the fancy grocery store up the street from our apartment for lunch (a baguette veggie sandwich and a strawberry vanilla prebiotic soda.) As I’m pulling out of the parking spot, I see the epitome of L.A. in front of my very eyes: lip fillings, spray tan, tiny white yorkshire terrier on a pink leash, expensive athleisure. I realize that I live in Los Angeles, and maybe I don’t want to anymore.