4.01.2009

"leave all your lovin, your longing behind, you can't carry it with you if you want to survive"


Too many people think all of California looks like Disneyland or some other movie set. We all walk around in full makeup, lines memorized, ready to tantrum if our Starbucks hasn't been delivered by the time we reach our trailer. We exist only in Rodeo Drive and Sunset Blvd, glittering beaches and sparkling weather, earthquakes and scripted drama.

But I am a third generation Californian and maybe that's why I love the Grapevine with this breath-intake kind of love. It's somewhat unreal unless you know this state well, a mix of these norms with its outlying suburbs and then the distinctly imperfect with crags and seasons. Ridges can be barren save for these tiny insignificant green starbursts that may be able to bite, and then lushly dead with our namesake gold which seems stroke-able like a favored pet. Then there are the movie days. The perfection that no one expected to find so close to Los Angeles, an otherworldly vision of clouds greenhills wildflowers. How could such normal beauty exist in a manufactured Mecca of the False?

There certainly is that evolution gripping and tearing my home into this merchandise-centered filth that I'm beginning to not recognize, but I don’t see how this differs from you. Juicy Tracksuits may have started in Beverly Hills, but they’ll end on your street corner, maybe to be revived by another generation, thrifting for inspiration. Know that discounting whatever you think we are will in distance discount your own misconceptions.

Rail the fear of wind rain and that particular scent of a shook earth, but then I invite you to live a charred home simply because the Santa Anas decided to do what they do best that day. Fear that instead, pride intact.

12 comments:

ALWAYS OVERDRESSED said...

love the picture actually. homegrown californian myself. my backyard is a mountain and there definitely isn't a hollywood sign on that hill, more like the shrubby leftovers that the annual fires. ha great post.

Madeline said...

Beautiful picture. I agree. the most beautiful california is the one that you don't see in US Weekly. Its in the nature and the free spirited people that love the land. I'm so jealous. I wish I lived there.

Jillian Hobbs said...

wow that was beautiful, the photo and your description of California. My boyfriend is from California and he's in love with it...

lovely!

Iole said...

stopping by to say hi!
xoxo
Iole

Anonymous said...

i live in california too, and i don't like when people think of california as just hollywood.
sf<3

laura said...

lovely. i'm from New Zealand and that picture looks just like home to me. green.

Louise said...

Wow, you know Florence & The Machine, not many people know of her music, but I am like the biggest fan haha.

And everyone assumes it must be 'cool' living in places like California, LA, London, Paris, etc. But it's not much different to other places :).

Would you like to exchange blog links?

http://becausewearingblacklooksmysterious.blogspot.com/

xoxo

Hek said...

Good to hear that you all don't live in trailers on a movie set, hehe;p
Seriously, seeing something real from California is far more interesting than just hollywood glam.

jules said...

Lovely photo, I spent every summer in california growing up, and never went to LA until I was nearly thirteen. Northern california is just as pretty I think.

Rumi Neely said...

Parts of the Grapevine are so beautiful..such a huge part of California looks like that instead of the palm trees that everyone pictures!

I'm going to look up that Chloe vest you mentioned, I'm curious now!

xx

Louise said...

i've added you to my blog links :).

xoxo

Anonymous said...

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t o
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i n
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i t
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xx