Charmed

Bloody awful image on the front page of the NY Times today.

So this is what I'm thinking: Los Angeles has lost its charm (for me). Like an old boyfriend who gradually starts to annoy you - when all those little habits you once found endearing start to grow old - the romance is dead. I don't wake up with that heady optimism any more.

Now for you clever counter-sleuthing amateur psychologists out there, it probably comes as no surprise to you that the day after I drop my son off at college on the east coast I fall out of love with Los Angeles. But this isn't a crush that developed overnight. This is not Sienna Miller and Balthazar Getty. This has been a long-lingering sensation that I've finally felt brave enough to proclaim. LA is hot and brown and uncharismatic. This side of the country is fresh and green and the sea is blue and cold and familiar, and the sun shines through the leaves of the oak trees and dapples the kitchen walls. I am sitting at a table in the kitchen and if I turn my head to the left I can see a shingled house, a kid riding a bike, the ocean; if I turn my head the right, there is a hedge, a tree, some grass, a dog, and this marvelous light. The dog, which is one-eyed, slept on my bed last night, in the porch. My room has large glass-less windows covered in mesh so the breeze from the ocean blows in (and you feel like one of those people who live there lives on a webcam). I slept better than I have done for weeks.