WHAT I WANT TO REMEMBER

What I want to remember is how the Hollywood sign delighted me when it announced itself at the ends of streets, smack in the center square of the scene, thwarting the rule of thirds. Life started to look like the movies, and the movies started to look like life. The seasons surprised me every year, always out of time with the seasons I learned as a kid — Christmas rain that should’ve been snow, a grey malaise that should’ve been spring, the scorched hills and apocalypse skies while the rest of the country went apple picking.

But summer was perfect. An idyllic sun-drenched surplus where taut glistening bodies ate watermelon and drank tequila and emerged from expensive pools, throbbing with youth and freedom and the illusion of wealth. Fireworks that started in June and scared the dogs through August.

I always felt like I could go to the beach so I rarely went. When I did, I got very brown and a little drunk and munched on Trader Joe’s snacks. That one day in Malibu, I felt the happiest I’d ever been. Waves and margaritas lifted me just high enough above my life to see how lush it was.

The beautiful people flocked to bars in pairs or groups. When I was in love, I missed my friends. When I was with friends, I was lonely for love. Loneliness was the donnée.

No one’s family is here so we are each other’s.

Everyone is the thing they are plus the thing they want to be.

There are so many cities in this city that I lost my wanderlust for a long time. I never wanted to leave this palimpsest of dreams. This Pollock of taco trucks.

I reinscribed myself, body and mind, through the city’s eyes. Once she taught me to take up space, she always entrusted me with new spaces to fill.

There’s never a dress code — anything goes.

Anything goes, anything goes.