Homes: The Way They Were

There’s a scene in the movie, The Way We Were, where two men are sharing “best of” memories. Inspired by that scene, I am remembering the many homes of my life and their “best of” moments.

Though I have lived in many places, not all of them felt like home. The ones that I think of as home were those where I felt connected to my surroundings. These are my “best of” home memories, “the way they were.”

First home, early childhood in a multi-ethnic Chicago apartment complex where our playgrounds were asphalt and concrete, alleyways sandwiched between brick buildings, underground storage basements and a large empty, weed prairie. I always dreamed of having a real backyard with flowerbeds like my aunt’s old Chicago house in South Shore.

Best memory: climbing the advertising billboard's wooden scaffolds on the State Street side of the prairie to get a great view of sparks flying when the boys threw cans on the streetcar tracks, a game for city kids.

Second home, teen years in the south suburbs of Chicago, in working class Dolton, where we finally had a yard where my mother hung the wash to dry on a clothesline that doubled as our theatre curtain, a blanket attached with clothespins, for our backyard plays.

Best memory: the fir tree my mother planted that grew taller than our house and became a giant Xmas tree every winter that we lit for all to see.

In my married home 20’s to mid 30’s in Eureka, a central Illinois bedroom community of churchgoing gentlemen farmers, home was a rambling farmhouse that we modernized on our semi-timbered five acres adjacent to neighbors who rode their horses past the cornfields up the road.

Best memory: my young children playing in a tree, one in the big tire swing and the other in the crook of the tree.

Second best memory: growing a vegetable garden for the first time and preparing the homegrown produce for my family and putting fresh cut flowers on the table from my own backyard.

My home on a cul-de-sac in Falls Church, VA, where some nights the sky was a planetarium with constellations that shone brightly as crickets serenaded us on a summer evening.

Best memory: watching our beloved cat, Frisky, roll around in the ivy while I rested lazily with a book in the hammock slung between two giant White Oak trees.

Last home in an apartment townhome in Marina del Rey overlooking the channel, watching the moon play on the water with the shimmering lights of boats and distant planes looking like UFOs blocking the stars as they descended into LAX.

Best memory: walking the boardwalk piers between the slips of the anchored sailboats and yachts during a crimson sunset, almost as much pleasure as strolling the beach a few blocks away.

Home today in a condo overlooking a former golf course in Phoenix.

Best memory: drinking my morning coffee while I watch a hummingbird pause for a sweet drink at the feeder just above the orange tree.

All of the home bookmarks are where I felt centered. They are the places that are always with me and are the “best of” memories.

Copyright © Erana Leiken, 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


 
Tree photo by Sue Byford
Hummingbird photo by Tiffany Clark

D.C. to LA: A Monumental Change

Whenever I lost my way in DC, I looked for the Washington Monument, the tallest building in the District of Columbia, an obelisk sentry overlooking the city. I remember relaxing as I navigated my way home on Constitution Avenue flanked by its powerful Federal buildings.

Today I look to the Santa Monica Ferris wheel as my compass with the sea on one side and the canyons and hillsides on the other. Wide-open space accompanies me home now, nine months after the move from East to West. Along with the change of geography came a cultural change.

Even though I'm in the same country, speak the same language, I feel like a foreigner. Here are some of my observations as a newcomer to LA. One of the oddities of LA is that people who live here give each other directions constantly and never go anywhere without their traffic Bible, The Thomas Guide.

Perhaps the unwieldy sprawl of the place and the sardine freeways necessitate that Angelenos tell each other how to get around. It's part of their way of life. In a town where image is everything, billboards, "big screens," are everywhere, touting causes, movies, and designer fashions throughout the city. The images are built into LA's geography for maximum visibility. Sides of buildings display giant TV and film stars who gaze upon their fans like mythical gods and goddesses imbued with the power to dictate fashion and cultural trends.

Youth and beauty reign in LA. Younger women glide evocatively like island women in their city village. Aware of their physical power, they exude a sensual beauty and confidence. They have attitude; they are liberated, reminiscent of 1920s women, seductive in their natural bodies in clothing that provocatively reveals their charms.

Older women can't compete with the "bodies" of starlets and models in LA, but they haven't stopped trying. Regardless of age, there are almost no flat-chested women in LA; bodies are rebuilt here, "youthinized" to attain perfection and admiration. It is not unusual to see elders who look more like Zsa Zsa than grandma.

I discovered that I'm at an awkward age again, midlife adolescence, not comfortable with the seniors or the hip, caught between the too old and the too young. I studied other women to see how I could fit in better. I grew my hair longer, put in blond highlights, started working out at a gym, wore tighter clothes and more makeup, in hopes that my new exterior would help me blend into the LA "look" and wondered if I was headed toward Botox and collagen next.

I tried to meet people by attending singles events, singles everything: sailing, skiing, Christian, Jewish, cultural happenings. One gathering, under the guise of being a "spiritual" workshop, was actually a front to coax women to proposition men. Another singles function, a dating service's Valentines Party, initiated courtship by having singles find the people who matched the numbers on their admission ticket.

Contacts are what count in LA. The established protocol is an introduction. As laid back as LA is, the custom of an introduction is quite formal. Behaving like the hierarchy of a royal court, insiders grant favors to outsiders with an introduction. Soliciting without one is not readily accepted by LA's contact rules. To become acknowledged in the right circles, an introduction is required from someone who knows the "prized" contact. Such favors are chits, IOU's that are banked and exchanged like currency in the contact system.

Life outside of LA seems not to matter to the natives. Local TV news coverage ranges from 30-second reports on world events to detailed stories about cosmetic surgery procedures and, of course, a car chase, the LA news staple. I now understand why Jay Leno's jaywalking interviews feature people who don't know what's going on outside of LA. The external world seems to be of no consequence, so there's really to need to pay attention to it.

In this new place, at least I speak the language, movie speak. It is the common dialect of a sprawling cityscape and multicultural geography. Everyone is a film critic whether it's at the supermarket checkout line or the local video store. I also participate in one of the local sports...star spotting. Off screen in their life-size bodies, actors appear surprisingly small in contrast to their celluloid images.

LA's most famous celebrity is its weather. Angelenos delight in being weather blessed as if the sun favors the city with divine weather fortune. No matter what else is happening in LA, the weather seems to be a constant source of pride to the locals. It is a privilege that sets them apart from other cities, and it makes them smile whenever they talk about it.

For all of LA's eccentricities, as a writer, I find its creative energy exhilarating. The culture values artists. It's as if self-expression is an inalienable right in LA's creative democracy. I know I will not have this perspective of LA indefinitely. It's my ninth-month view. I'm still exploring its glitter, glamour, and illusion as well as its creative life. In the meantime, I look for the Santa Monica Ferris wheel, a lighthouse on the pier, to guide me home.

Copyright © Erana Leiken, 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Flight from Phoenix

Back in L.A. driving my daughter’s Land Rover she’s named Lola. Passing through my near past in southern CA where I lived until seven months ago. Familiar but no longer home…remembering and lingering only for the moment. The vehicle carries me through the changing scenery and the memories with it.

I’m here for a UCLA writing class back on the campus where I taught a year ago. Still feeling a bond…still a part of me…wondering if at some point, I’ll return.

Last night for a split second, I considered going back to the marina, parking in the dark, and walking back to my former home. Just before the light changed, I moved the car back into the left lane to return to Manhattan Beach where my daughter lived and not back to the Marina where I had lived for almost four years.

Not sure why I couldn’t go back…would it make me feel bad? Am I emotionally letting go of the past and that chapter of my life? Is that symbolic of my move from LA to Phoenix, especially now since I’m moving my possessions from storage and signing a year’s lease? Is it the final parting and commitment to a new place and new life? It’s as if with my name on a contract, I now have to stay and start over though I’m not sure I want to.

Other than a piece of paper, internally I have not signed myself to a life in Phoenix. It’s the desert where I will stay inside for the summer and age when I’m not ready to do either. Did I choose a place I’m not ready for and perhaps will never be ready for?

If not Phoenix, where?

Copyright © Erana Leiken, 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED