Dear Reader,
I got into my car to move it for street cleaning and drove to Tartine instead. I live in Los Angeles now, did you know that? I live outside of but adjacent to Hancock Park, so I often find myself intruding on prim neighborhoods of manicured lawns and expensive bakeries just minutes away from of my much more modest street. LA makes me feel poor but at least the rich are so silly here. I like to drive my sunbleached 2007 hybrid Honda Civic that vibrates like a rocket to somewhere like the intersection of Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, Sightglass, Tartine, and Ex Nihilo on Sycamore, where the people are trussed up like expensive toy dogs and seem just as anxious.
I think about money too much these days. Out with friends, I can hear myself boring them with all my money talk. I’m Eeyore at Ye Rustic Inn eating wings and talking about climate change and recession. The gas bill was so expensive last month that we turned off the heat so I’m writing this under a heated blanket. Sometimes I try to talk about the big thing — how rising cost of eggs and heat and butter and bread make me surer that this is a preview of how life will eventually become too expensive to live, like it already has for many people, and I will be obsoleted and extinguished. But I can’t bring that up because it’s such a bummer, and doesn’t change anything anyway, and everyone knows that hard days are coming but we’ll keep living because we will. I bought a sesame loaf at Tartine and ate a slice with butter and salt when I got home. Delicious. If only I could complain to you about how much it cost!
Working from home is now the default for my line of work, which is part of how I ended up living in Los Angeles. It’s difficult in distinct ways from in-person work. I can end up feeling numb, isolated, atomized, and to manage it, I have to go out in the world and see people. I think I saw the LindyMan twitter account discussing this idea of “daily faces” that says that human beings need to see real, in-person faces every day so we don’t end up like Harlow’s wire mother monkey. I definitely think that’s true. But again — money. It can be hard to go out without accidentally spending $65 and feeling like someone stole your lunch money. And sometimes that can be fun, but too much compulsive decadence is curdling my milk.
As the days are getting warmer and longer, I’m trying to spend as much time as possible outside and to spend as little money as possible. While LA is a great place to buy pistachio croissants, porcelain stamps, and handblown carafes, it’s also a great place to enjoy hikes, parks, and museums without spending a dime. And one of the best things you can possibly do in the afternoon is walk to the library.
After I’d finished my slice of bread and my work for the day, I decided that my daily faces would come from a library walk. Sometimes I think about how if I learned to code, I could develop a sort of Strava for cataloging beautiful walks. Though I probably wouldn’t — just talking about a nice walk route to my tiny blog makes me itchy. Privacy is luxury! But I’ll tell you this — there are houses along my library walk that I miss like a lover, and potholes that I’m watching grow. There’s one house so special I’ve thought about writing a letter to the owner, just to tell them how much I appreciate the love they put into the care and keeping of their home.
The best thing about walking in LA is looking at early 20th century Spanish architecture, lush gardens, and people. When I go on my walks, I see young families, older couples, dog walkers, and wistful fucks like myself. I feel an intense kinship with other pedestrians and a vicious hatred of cars. One of my favorite regular walkers is this one beautiful young mother pushing a stroller and walking the largest, fluffiest dog I’ve ever seen. Sometimes, though not today, there’s a cat sleeping on the tile roof of this one bungalow. If I see someone stomping around with a tote bag and some airpods I look at them like Spongebob catching Squidward eating Krabby Patties, because I have them all figured out.
When I reached the library, I returned Wanda dir. by Barbara Loden and Bear by Marian Engel, the “most controversial novel ever written in Canada,” and checked out In Bruges and The Conversation. There was every type of person in the library, and I felt so lucky that libraries exist, and that we could all be together in a beautiful Spanish Mediterranean building built in 1927 having our own nice afternoons for free. Today it was 70 degrees and the sun set past 5:30pm. Good days do not erase material needs and real fears, but they’re a balm nonetheless.
If you’d like to share a favorite walking route, or music you listen to while walking I would love that. Here’s a walking playlist for you:
Wishing you a good walk,
Margaret