It was an admittedly obsessive exercise and I have already found its usefulness to be comparable to middle school academic bowl when I learned the lyrics to American Pie, but not the tune. My knowledge of the LA neighborhoods was exhaustive, but sterile. I still knew nothing about how each area felt or, perhaps more importantly, how I would feel IN it.
The exercise paid off eventually, though. Sunday, I met my friends Lauren and Sam at The Doughroom for brunch and afterwards had an urge to drive. I realized I STILL had yet to see the Pacific as resident, so I quickly hopped on the 10 and followed signs towards Malibu. The ocean appeared from beneath an overpass, glittering blue and insistent on my attention. Northward, the road narrowed, carrying me past huddled packs of beachfront houses.
A few miles up the PCH, I decided to program my GPS with my destination for the Super Bowl and keep driving until the ETA on the app was the time I intended to be there, at which point, I would start following the directions. It seemed like enough structured spontaneity to make an afternoon of and I would have held to it if I hadn't seen an alluring sign for Malibu Canyon Road.
In a matter of a few turns, the ocean was forgotten as I sped along, hugging the steep canyon walls. The road took me past Malibu Creek State Park and within sight of some astonishing rock formations before finally depositing me on the 101 near Calabasas. My jaunt was over. All that remained was to head east to my buddy Adam's for kickoff.
While I was blissed out on the PCH, it was on the next stretch of the drive that I noticed the benefits of my furious memorization. Instead of ignoring exit signs until the GPS told me to pay attention, I smiled at names I recognized, neighborhoods arranged north and south of the freeway just as they had been on the interactive map. I began predicting the next sign and found myself hitting more than I missed. I'd had the lyrics, now I had the tune, the physical sense of how one place knit into the next. I was on the freeway, to be fair, and surely missing some surface road broad strokes, but I still enjoyed the comfort of not being lost. I was no longer surrounded by the foreign language of unfamiliar places. My Los Angeles geography was passable, if rudimentary.
It's a nice feeling and it bred more confidence. I keep finding myself trying new routes and new extracurriculars just to put myself in a new place in the city. Yesterday, after work, I walked 20 minutes southeast of my office to the Arts District, where the Angel City Brewery holds a Monday game night. I was nervous, having been told not to stray too far while Downtown, but with plenty of daylight left and the sight of hundreds of normal folks living their lives very unthreateningly, I never felt unsafe (acknowledging that to be the luxury of the six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered, white male). Instead, I got to walk through some new neighborhoods, feeling the pulse of areas Mapping LA would have slapped "Downtown" on before calling it quits. A few hours later, after some good beer, delicious food, and a game of Pandemic, I called an Uber and made it home with such speed and ease that I could hardly believe it. The utility and price of Uber is going to make happy hours hard to pass on.
I'm liking it here and if I can't claim fluency yet, I at least feel my mind opening wide, seeking immersion.
The exercise paid off eventually, though. Sunday, I met my friends Lauren and Sam at The Doughroom for brunch and afterwards had an urge to drive. I realized I STILL had yet to see the Pacific as resident, so I quickly hopped on the 10 and followed signs towards Malibu. The ocean appeared from beneath an overpass, glittering blue and insistent on my attention. Northward, the road narrowed, carrying me past huddled packs of beachfront houses.
A few miles up the PCH, I decided to program my GPS with my destination for the Super Bowl and keep driving until the ETA on the app was the time I intended to be there, at which point, I would start following the directions. It seemed like enough structured spontaneity to make an afternoon of and I would have held to it if I hadn't seen an alluring sign for Malibu Canyon Road.
In a matter of a few turns, the ocean was forgotten as I sped along, hugging the steep canyon walls. The road took me past Malibu Creek State Park and within sight of some astonishing rock formations before finally depositing me on the 101 near Calabasas. My jaunt was over. All that remained was to head east to my buddy Adam's for kickoff.
While I was blissed out on the PCH, it was on the next stretch of the drive that I noticed the benefits of my furious memorization. Instead of ignoring exit signs until the GPS told me to pay attention, I smiled at names I recognized, neighborhoods arranged north and south of the freeway just as they had been on the interactive map. I began predicting the next sign and found myself hitting more than I missed. I'd had the lyrics, now I had the tune, the physical sense of how one place knit into the next. I was on the freeway, to be fair, and surely missing some surface road broad strokes, but I still enjoyed the comfort of not being lost. I was no longer surrounded by the foreign language of unfamiliar places. My Los Angeles geography was passable, if rudimentary.
It's a nice feeling and it bred more confidence. I keep finding myself trying new routes and new extracurriculars just to put myself in a new place in the city. Yesterday, after work, I walked 20 minutes southeast of my office to the Arts District, where the Angel City Brewery holds a Monday game night. I was nervous, having been told not to stray too far while Downtown, but with plenty of daylight left and the sight of hundreds of normal folks living their lives very unthreateningly, I never felt unsafe (acknowledging that to be the luxury of the six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered, white male). Instead, I got to walk through some new neighborhoods, feeling the pulse of areas Mapping LA would have slapped "Downtown" on before calling it quits. A few hours later, after some good beer, delicious food, and a game of Pandemic, I called an Uber and made it home with such speed and ease that I could hardly believe it. The utility and price of Uber is going to make happy hours hard to pass on.
I'm liking it here and if I can't claim fluency yet, I at least feel my mind opening wide, seeking immersion.
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