2.5.98

I started these stories improperly. I didn't really start at the beginning, with my first L.A. story. Well, even this isn't the first story but it should be.

I actually came to Los Angeles sometime last fall. I, remarkably, had a job interview. T. had only been down here a week or so but we were already missing each other. The Company, which shall remain unnamed, was even flying me down from Portland. The big time, right?

The purpose of this trip, besides hoping to land a job with said Company, was to take a peek at L.A. and see if I could stomach living here.

Descent into LAX begins over the Pacific. I looked out the window at the ocean, with the sun skimming across the waves, and noticed something odd about the water. It was shredded. There seemed to be a film - as though a sheet of nearly-transparent silk had been stretched flat and where the waves gently undulated it had ripped the fabric in parallels.

I marveled at this for some time, not really sure of what I was looking at. Then I noticed a boat, skimming perpendicular to the waves and cutting a new swath through the fabric. It then dawned on that this was pollution.

I could be wrong. Perhaps, it is some naturally-occurring phenomenon that produces a sheen across the water which breaks up and rejoins with the movement of the waves.

I returned to my magazine.

The next moment when I glanced out my window I was greeted with the sprawling metropolis that is Los Angeles. I can't remember if I saw the city, the skyscrapers, but what I did see was houses and businesses stretching to the horizon. I let out an audible "Wow."

There's really nothing else to say at that moment.

I have flown a lot. I especially love flying over and into big cities at night. You see all the lights. You watch tiny cars travel the latitudes and longitudes - headlights appearing, taillights fading. It's so amazing - a star carpet. And, it's all for you.

There's some sort of mystical, childish power that, if you let it, can come over you and you can imagine that all the stars below belong to you. Well, flying into Los Angeles, it's heart flayed open and stretched in broad daylight - I felt that nothing of this mass could possibly belong to me.

- to be continued -