I was raised in an apartment not too different from the one we live in now. It had that curly mid-century font peeling off a stucco wall and a pool with a circular cement picnic table. I learned to swim by holding onto the wall and guiding myself to the deep end before letting my body go adrift, and needing to pull through the water out of necessity. My mom would sit on the cement bench with us after, root beer popsicles in tow. The sounds of the freeway overpass nearby became a sound of the landscape; the steady rushing like wind or moving water.
As an adult I again live in one of those rows of kitschy apartment complexes that can be found in almost every part of Los Angeles County. They have names like The Palm or Club House or Pacific, really any name that you could also see written across the back of a mid-size boat. The U-shaped building seems to curl its back toward the highway it is adjacent to, creating a weak barrier between us and a constant soundscape of the city. Children play in the pool on warm evenings when the day’s heat remains trapped between vinyl floors and popcorn ceilings. A man stops by our courtyard with his cart of helados on summer nights.
On my walk to the metro, I pass over piles of those long red fragrant leaves. They fall from those stark white trees planted on the sides of the freeway, and smell like tea and fresh soil. I remember picking them up and pulling them apart as a child. Their intricate veins make it difficult to flake the dry leaf off into pieces. The arteries keep the pieces of a disjointed whole together.
I was scared of the metro for a while. I spent a long time after college being scared of most things. I had retreated to a place where chickens outnumbered people and the entire town fell into a deep dark at night. It took me a while to become inured to the constant parade of human suffering a big city offers. To watch someone go through the trash while your own stomach is full. To see someone use the sidewalk as a last resort bathroom. To say “you good sir?” to a man passed out face down on the street, because the paramedics aren’t coming for everyone who finds themselves passed out in a gutter. How could they?
Between stops the metro passes over city blocks. Golden sunlight streams in on the afternoon commute. People talk and laugh. Siblings ride together, the older one showing the younger where to sit. People laugh with each other. A wife leans her head on a husband’s shoulder.
It feels good to be going home, back to the building curling from the freeway. I let the windows open to warm night air. A whining child, pots and pans, TV commercials; there is a softness to the sound of other people’s domestic life. I think my own must sound strange. We put our dog’s name into songs, we laugh loudly, the air fryer hisses with something burning inside.
The bedroom blinds are tightly folded over each other, but the unnaturally white light from the street fluorescents creates a glow around the edges. On worse nights I wonder why I spend so much money to be here. On better nights we hold onto each other, and I know I will keep waking up to a city that will try to be better than it was the day before.
Savanna 