Hollywood Forever

February 29, 2016 JG 2 Comments

People keep asking me how I like LA. Or how I came to be here. Or if I think I’m staying.

I, myself, barely remember that I am here lately. This is the first weekend in 7 weeks that I’ve slept in my own zip code, and between those weekends, I’ve been working a good number of 11- and 12-hour days at the office. In weeks like that, does it matter where one lives?

And yet it does. Because where else but LA could you take four pieces of art that have been sitting in your apartment, patiently awaiting frames for a year, to finally get the love they deserve, and end up taking the dog for a walk in that ultimate commitment to never leaving LA: Hollywood Forever Cemetery?

Tucked between the Paramount lot and Santa Monica Blvd, with a clear view of the infamous Hollywood sign on most days, Hollywood Forever Cemetery has a little of something to love from every corner of this city. There are Russian Orthodox here, and Russian Jews, and German Jews, and just plain Jewish Jews. I would imagine there are some just plain Russians and Germans and Chinese and Japanese and Vietnamese and Italians and maybe some Brits and people of other sorts, but I didn’t happen upon their individual ‘neighborhoods.’ There’s a Jewish mausoleum and a Catholic mausoleum and a giant empty space of mausoleum waiting to be filled with anyone ready to commit to whatever Hollywood brings on.

On a sunny Saturday that threatened to heat up, numerous palm trees and other deciduous arboreal delights provided ample shade and some wandering space for the dog. Like the rest of LA, the cemetery is absurdly dog-friendly. Of course it is – it’s the eternal home of Toto.

The grass is pleasingly unkempt; the cemetery (unlike LA) is not overly-coiffed. Its natural irregularity is inviting, and I was tempted to wander through the crowded rows of tombstones on a plush offroad journey. But I was informed by a friendly but firm security guard that dogs must stay off the grass. The reason, he pointed out from his seat on an official golf cart, is because the graves and some of their stones ride right up against the curb in a significant portion of the park.

The stones are worthy of their own rolling credits. It’s not the people who lie within or beneath them – though there is a Golden Age of Hollywood Who’s Who list buried here – it’s the pure variety of the stones themselves. They are stones the size of ledger paper. There are stones flush to the ground. There are stones the size of coffins, and stones that are sarcophagi; stones engraved with the symbols of Masons and Oddfellows, Stars of David and Coptic crosses, and things I’ve never seen before. There are family plots that are monuments themselves; there are crypts and obelisks and something that looks like a cross between a real pyramid and a pyramid you’d find on the Vegas Strip, but of course, this is Hollywood, and what is Vegas but a variation on that theme?

There are homages here. To mothers, and sons, to brothers and daughters and great grandparents ‘united in eternity’ side by side, their portraits etched in granite above them.

There are artists and actors and singers and writers and producers and directors and normal Joe’s. There are granddaughters now walking with canes and aided by great granddaughters carrying picnics to visit family members on a sunny afternoon. There are mourners gathered, and empty chairs set up awaiting more. And there are tourists – foreign and domestic, and local, like myself, wandering through a local past and wondering about the future. It’s a village of passed souls breathing a little life to those of us still walking above them, looking up at the palm trees and blue sky, and wondering how we got to this incredible place.

Los Angeles

The Jig Is Up

October 1, 2015 JG 2 Comments

I’ve never been great with milestones. When I left New York after five difficult years of college, the friend with whom I was driving cross-country asked if I had anything I wanted to say or do to mark the occasion. I said, “yeah, get in the car and leave.”

Setting intention isn’t historically my strong suit, and sabbatical-ing around the world was no different. As I mentioned way back when, I landed in Bogota with a four day hostel reservation, an around the world plane ticket, a six-year-old copy of South America on a Shoestring, and two weeks to get to Bolivia. Advance planning: not my strong suit.

So how do I mark today, the momentous last day of freedom before I return to work? With gratitude, with friendship, and with adventure – the same way I spent my time out and about in the world.

I walked the dog this morning the same way I have most days I’ve lived in this neighborhood. I happened, today, to see the owner of a home that I have watched, dog walk by dog walk, be lovingly restored and re-landscaped in a neighborhood where homes are more frequently torn down and replaced with McMansions. I got to tell her how much I’ve loved watching her house come back to life – and see how happy she was to be thanked.

Dogwalk LA today

I went to the Broad Museum, just opened last week, and saw amazing art with a friend who took the same semester off from college in 1991; the last cultural thing we did together was use my dad’s tickets to see La Traviata at the San Francisco Opera, which we left after one intermission because we were both crying so hard we couldn’t take anymore. But even today, we both remembered that evening for its beauty, which I believe is how I will remember today. Something old, something new, something inspirational.

Me beside a chair in Robert Therrien’s Under the Table, at the Broad

These plates are taller than I am. My grandfather always said, "Don't stack the plates!"

These plates are taller than I am. See the person in the background? My grandfather always said, “Don’t stack the plates!”

And then I delighted in the mundane. I went grocery shopping. I cleaned my room. I changed my sheets and unpacked my suitcase from last week’s adventure. I hardly remember how to go to work, despite some contract jobs here in LA (like that time I worked on the Oscars, which I’ve yet to report). So I’m trying to remember what I need at a desk, what one wears to an office, and to bring my paperwork to prove I’m a legal, able to work, resident of the USA. Thank goodness my passport is close at hand.

This transition – this last day of ‘freedom’ – is one of many lasts I’ve had since I packed up and hit the road over two years ago. There was my last day in Dallas , my last day ‘out and about in the world, which took place in Turkey, my last drive in my beloved Bessie. But this transition also marks one of many more firsts on this adventure my life has become: my first visits to 16 countries, my first published piece, my first new car in 15 years, my first time (and second, and third) in the Eastern Sierra in 25 years, and tomorrow, my first day at a new company since 2005.

My last day out and about in the world, in the harem in Istanbul.

My last day out and about in the free world (today). Do I look THAT different?

The struggle with this transition is the looming question, “Is this the end?” Is the adventure over? And while, of course, I’ve had moments of panic at this very thought, the reality is no, of course not. The adventure began where, somewhere along the way, I learned to let go of fear and let in life. To take risks that were previously unimaginable because I would have rationalized my way out of them, before even starting. Quitting my job was a risk. Moving to LA was a risk. Taking this new job is a risk – it seems safer than the wander but the truth is, I will be measured against or among a number of incredibly competent people while undertaking new and unfamiliar tasks, and I may not measure up. But at least I will have tried.

What I have learned these last two years could fill a book – and hopefully, it will. In the meantime, I will be toiling away at something new – at a desk, or on a page, or here in LA – and storing up time and resources for the next great wander. And I will be doing it with a degree of gratitude and compassion that I’ve only discovered in myself because of the amazing trip I’ve taken.

(PS: This isn’t goodbye. There are at least three half-written blog posts on this computer crying to be published, not to mention that in looking for that picture of Turkey, I realized I never wrote about Turkey (or Morocco, or Patagonia, or…). So check back…)

On the Road, United States

Vernita Falls

October 21, 2014 JG 1 Comment

There are no pictures, because you are driving and you have to keep going. No pictures but what will burn itself in the memory centers of your brain, just like light burns onto the chemicals of film, the chemicals of photo paper, for you to pull out at a later date and remember. No pictures but what you make on your mind, and what you recall from it because something you see now, through the windshield, tickles something you saw before, in a picture, in a museum, through an airplane window.

90 takes you over the first set of mountains, into the fog, by the sleeping ski slopes, and out the other side. Past Vernita Falls, Dallas Road, Coffin Road, the famous (who knew) Teapot Dome Gas Station. Out past the vineyards, the apple groves in the process of being harvested – apples so big and ripe you can see them from the highway – past the wind turbines and burned fields. Frequently, you want to stop, take a photo. Frequently, you wonder who names these places, and how.

My maternal grandmother’s name was Vernita. She died two weeks, almost to the hour, before I was born. In her honor, my middle name is her first name – because my mother didn’t think Vernita was a nice thing to do to a girl in the 70s. But who, out here, in Eastern Washington State, who knows when, had this same uncommon name, and gave it to a waterfall I don’t have time to stop and see?

Onto 84, crossing the gorge into Oregon, you travel behind a truck filled with sweet onions, their papery skins flying off behind and a waft of onion scent trailing you both over the border. The land dries, the wind flies, dirt dances up into whirling dervishes of land, lost in its own silent prayer.

Occasionally, an ancient barn will crumble by the roadside. Next to it, the new one, the house built in the years between the two. Occasionally, next to it, nothing but land, nothing but the hills, and the freeway, nothing but these dilapidated remnants of America’s agricultural past. Sometimes, the remains are of a cabin, no town near, no river, no….nothing, but the skeletal remains of Manifest Destiny’s westward expansion and the casualties that came with it. Dead dreams by the side of the road. Road kill of a different kind.

And then a car on fire, fully engulfed in flames. And then a strip mall: Kohl’s, Best Buy, Starbucks, Target. You could be anywhere, but you are here, wherever it is. Soon it is southern, eastern Idaho, northern Utah, the Snake River cutting deep through high dry mesas, creating a fertile green farming valley. Somewhere, the rock is volcanic, black and sharp, and then everything is red, rust-colored. Out 80, into the mountains, the snow fences begin, lined up and waiting for the weather to come like a farm of solar panels waiting for the sun.

And then Wyoming. Wild, wonderful, heart-breakingly gorgeous, with the green aspen turning gold and the black trunk of cottonwoods striking out behind yellowing leaves, along the riverbeds, up the valleys between hills. Trains snake through the canyons, hug the red-rock cliffs, slither low on the prairie behind the scrub brush and sage, carrying the loot of virgin land. They fade into the distance the same way Vernita Falls faded behind you, the same way the distance fades into fall – nostalgic, fogged over, waiting for weather to come.

Life Skills

Go Fly a Kite

September 10, 2014 JG 2 Comments

For weeks, I’ve been longing to just do nothing. Many of you think that’s what I’ve been doing for a year, but I believe a scroll through the blog section of my site will disabuse you of that notion. Despite returning to the states, I’m still moving around, and I’m doing it less efficiently than before.

Before, it was me, a big pack, and a day pack. I was a well-oiled traveling machine. These days, it’s me, a little duffle of clothes, a computer bag, a duffel of ‘stuff,’ and the random accoutrement that collects in my car – hiking boots, bathing suit, towel, dog blanket (despite having yet to be reunited with dog), extra quart of oil. Where before I was home-free, I’m now homeless, carting belongings around the northwest, losing bits by the wayside as I go.

My insides reflect that scattered-belonging appearance. The months I traveled, I experienced everything from the here and the now. I may have been planning the next place, but I did it from a very conscious present. From a courtyard in Bogota, I purchased a plane ticket to Santa Marta, a bus ticket to Cartagena, a plane trip to Bolivia. From a beer garden in Saigon, I reserved hotel rooms in Jordan, sending the details to a friend in Denver. The courtyard was bound in magenta bougainvillea, and the beer garden hosted a Vietnamese singer covering American classic rock. I may have been addressing the logistics of another place and time, but I was doing it from a very present self. A very centered one. It was invigorating.

Now, I am anxious and scattered. I think I am done traveling, but I’ve continued to move. I’ve slept in ten different places since returning from Spain at the end of June. I rotate between a few, on a schedule set usually a week (or less) in advance. While on this merry-go-round of homestays, I’m masterminding where I’ll settle, what I’ll do for work when I get there, whether it’s the right thing to do. I fall asleep fitfully, rearranging schedules and geographies in my head (usually in favor of the calendar with the shortest amount of time between me and a reunion with the dog). I worry I’ve over-stayed my welcome at one place, and another, and another. When daylight meets my open eyes, I make lists of tasks to complete in hopes of wrangling in my wild and blurry future. I’m tired in a place that coffee never touches and sleep never rests.

But this month, I’m on Orcas. A month of doing nothing. Doing nothing is rarely, actually, nothing. In fact, it’s one of the hardest tasks to accomplish. If you don’t believe me, try it. Put whatever you’re reading this on down, and take deep slow breaths for three full minutes.

Felt like an eternity, didn’t it? Like emptying your mind so you can meditate, doing nothing is actually very, very difficult. So I will work my way there. I started this afternoon by flying a kite in wind that blew up off the ocean. While lying in the grass looking up at it, I noticed the apple tree is in fervent production mode, so I took a picture. Tomorrow I may pick some and make applesauce.

My nothing won’t come all at once. It’s going to come after a couple hikes, the books I checked out of the library today, some kite-flying and some deep, deep breaths. When it comes, as it comes, though, my nothing will be full of wonder, and focus, and rejuvenation. It will be full of vivid, short, present moments that will last an eternity.

Life Skills, On the Road, Tourist, Traveling, United States

Where I’m From

April 17, 2014 JG 1 Comment

Three months before I turned 40, I spent a month obsessively looking at new cars on craigslist. When I realized I was perfectly happy with my 12 year-old stick shift station wagon, I left the cars behind and decided just to pierce my nose, like I’d wanted to do since I was 14. Suddenly, I was freed from the socially-acceptable expectations of mid-life, and welcomed into the decade that would allow me to just be me. Midlife crisis narrowly averted.

Not even a full state from Texas, a crisis of an entirely different order arose. I took refuge from a torrential downpour at a café on the Taos plaza, and got to talking to a woman about her dog. Naturally, she asked me where I was from. A normally chatty human being who can carry on a conversation with anyone from the Pope to a wall, I was struck silent. I didn’t even stutter; I just couldn’t answer. I was faced with a geographic identity crisis.

For the eight, mostly uncomfortable years I lived in Dallas, I told people, “I live in Dallas, but I’m from California.” This is the technical truth – I was born in San Francisco, and consider myself a Californian – but it isn’t the whole story. I arrived in Dallas a full seven locations after I originally left my home state. As a result, I’m a committed recycler with aggressive driving skills, a very northeastern way of flipping the bird, a New Yorker’s style of walking through a crowded urban center ignoring everyone around me, a Northwestern desire to be outside even when the weather fills with rain and wind, and a Texan belief that my boots and a good buckle should work for any occasion. When I say, “I’m going home,” I could be referring to Seattle, San Francisco, or Dallas. But I don’t know how to tell someone where I’m from, because choosing one place feels like a lie.

I hoped this issue would resolve itself when I left the country, but it got worse. Complete strangers took a kind-hearted interest in the specifics of my personal history, and weren’t satisfied when I told them simply, “I’m from the United States.” People in other countries know a surprising number of US states; they also watch a lot of bad tv. Texas is on the map for Dallas (the original), Walker Texas Ranger, and George Bush. Telling people I’m from California garnered a lot of, “I’ll be back,” “oh…Ah-nald,” and, “California?…Hollywood?” So I tried Washington.

Cold, beautiful west coast

Understandably, it’s confusing to foreigners that the state of apples, Starbucks, and the Olympic peninsula is both not the same as the capital city that shares its name, and is located on the other side of the country. I didn’t bother correcting people who responded to Washington with, “ah! Obama’s house,” until the questions about DC got too involved, and I would confess that I was actually from an entirely different place (though I’ve lived in both).

Washington State

The irony of all this is that it actually doesn’t matter. In earlier eras, outside of Manifest Destiny, the Gold Rush, and great migrations, people rarely moved far from home. Now, we’re in a shrinking global community, where constant population flux consistently alters cultures, blending them across geographic boundaries, until good barbeque isn’t just found in the south and good bagels aren’t held captive in New York. The San Francisco of 2013, with its dot com billionaires and microapartments for a million dollars, isn’t the San Francisco of 1993, with its distinct neighborhoods, affordable housing, and hippy funk. (When people ask me if I’m moving back to San Francisco, I feel compelled to point out that San Francisco isn’t there anymore.)

And yet, for all this movement, for all this homogeneity of culture, place matters. When I go out for coffee, place matters. Am I walking there, biking there, driving there, or taking public transportation? Is it Dunkin’s coffee, Starbucks coffee, local coffee, organically sourced and priced up coffee? Or maybe it’s Turkish, Thai, or Vietnamese white coffee? Is it hot or cold? Is it smooth roasted, or bitter? Am I standing at the coffee bar chatting with neighbors, sitting at an outdoor café under a heat lamp, or grabbing it to go while I drive off someplace?

Place matters for the most simple things, because it’s the simple things that form who we are. The personality of a place shapes our approach to the world; it demonstrates for us how we absorb information, how we respond to stimuli around us, and how we view what we see moving forward. Thirty years ago, when I moved from the Bay area to Boston, this mattered a hundred times more.

I left a place of cold oceans with rough surf and foggy-day picnics on the beach, of yoga and recycling and home-made peanut butter, and went to the land of green pants with blue whales, classmates related to passengers on the Mayflower, and ‘one if by land two if by sea.’ As a result, though I longed regularly for the west coast of my childhood, I was raised using the T, rooting for the Celtics, watching my first baseball game from the Fenway bleachers, and busing out to Great Woods for one concert after another. There is no mistaking that these experiences gave me some of the independence that I enjoy when I travel, and that the longing to get back to the other coast, to see what was beneath me when I flew from one to another, gave me my desire to actually buy a plane ticket and do it.

New York subway

So when I tell people I’m from California, I feel like I’m disrespecting half of my roots. And I feel like my roots have more than two halves. Didn’t summers on a small island in Puget Sound teach me to love reading, staring at the water, and the smell of fresh wind? Didn’t college in New York help me understand that I can only do cities for a moment before I shut down? Don’t we continue to grow, to absorb place and its personality, and to change as a result, throughout our lives? I didn’t move to Texas until I was 30, but didn’t it warm me a bit, teach me a about expressing myself respectfully to people with opposing viewpoints, and help me understand myself better? Isn’t growth and absorption of place the only thing that explains Madonna’s fake British accent?

For all the shrinking of the world, place still matters. The more we create these hybrid humans who herald from multiple cultures, possibly without much leaving their own, the more confusing the question ‘where are you from’ will become. I, for one, am looking forward to it, so I’m not the only one suffering from a geographic identity crisis.

Crazy Dallas weather

Worth Packing In

the little truth of traveling

Recreation