“This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm,
This… Los Angeles.”
~ Harris K. Telemacher
Timothy Leary used to emphasize the importance of “set and setting” when embarking on a Trip: your mindset and your location & surroundings when tripping will greatly flavor your travel experience.
About thirty years ago I had jury duty in Federal Court in downtown Los Angeles. Since we live about sixty miles away, I rode the train – four days a week for nearly three months – and walked from Union Station to the Federal Building each morning and back again in the evening.
What a trip!
My mind and my feet traveled through time, wondering what it might have looked like when
-my mother used her now-forgotten mnemonic to recite the names of the streets as she and her friends went shopping “downtown”;
trying to imagine
-her father (my grandfather) and his experiences on those streets – a difficult and formative escape from his drunken and abusive father;
and how unrecognizable it would be to
-his grandmother (my great, great grandmother) who, in the last decade of the 19th century, referred to it as
“…Los Angeles which is, to me, the Paradise of Earth.”
She wrote these words many years before the current City Hall was erected in 1928.
Modeled after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the concrete in its tower was made with sand from each of California’s 58 counties and water from its 21 historical Missions.
Walking from Union Station each morning, the morning sunlight reflecting off City Hall, I’d smile to myself as I pondered my good fortune: I was only required to spend a few hours in “this demi-paradise” returning to the real paradise each evening. My daily “trip” was manageable from this perspective. The traffic noise, the homeless/beggars/winos, the smell of stale urine and the ubiquitous graffiti – all reminders that everyone’s “reality” is different.
One evening as I walked back to the train I noticed a hawk, riding the thermals above the Los Angeles River. His life inspired a Haiku:
Red-tail at sunset
Seeking life amid concrete
Exterminator!
1928 saw the dedication of City Hall in Los Angeles and, 60 miles down the coast, the incorporation of a new city, which I’ve called home for nearly 55 years. As they say in the Marine Corps, “tough duty!”
Last night I went to feed our neighbors’ dogs and glanced up at the sunset (pictured above). Why on earth would anyone leave this, even for a cruise?
Must be sinister forces at work to motivate such a flight.
It’s Obama’s Fault!
We’ll try to write from the road, Muses willing.
B & B 