Throughout the day, I gaze over the treetops and asphalt lines out the window that pour toward the sea. It is an uninterrupted view, which agitates me sometimes when the beauty makes me lonely.
“Look at that!” I turn to tell someone, but the excitement dissipates quickly. “Did you see that?!” Sometimes, there is a slight nod. Noses in computers and phones, work tasks and personal lives. I am in that moment all stringy hair playing with the dog alone in the backyard and burying myself if books and daydreams.
When I was little, there was my dad to point out rocks and birds and teach me things about the all the details that delighted. The world got bigger with those talks, seeing the science in the nature, seeing him in the science. He was magical. And when he saw birds he giggled like an eight-year old. I got to go to upstate NY in the 1940s, into his childhood, and hunt for arrowheads, fossils, and blackberries with him.
Now, the little moments evanesce quickly. They evaporate in the relentless march of the practical. The extra places they have are reserved for thoughts about family and ‘private’ lives. But for me, the whole world is private. I am still in the backyard with the dog, making worlds.
The view expands from my office window. It is high enough that the birds don’t come by often. The ocean collects the blue sky into a bluer ribbon; buildings only occasionally interrupt the horizon. Sometimes, I can see the very big ships and I think about where they are going; the heavy bellies move smoothly across the ocean with big solid hulls like snails. Closer to the shore and I would be able to see the sail boats slicing gracefully through the water and the people laying doing nothing in the sand. Little kids building sand castles. Volleyball players. Groups flocking to the pier. Another direction: the mountains cradle the basin to the north. I used to hike there. Below, I watch the silenced movement of cars and people in the streets making their way places. I watch the sky change from violet to blue to black, looking up from my other view of the screen and stacks of papers.
I would like a UFO to plop down right now and take me away — but this is not a Vonnegut novel and the absurdity of my little problems are not up to par. The window does not open anyway, to prevent falls unintentional and otherwise. We have big views and recycled air.
I can see where my home is from here: two miles up the hill. It’s a nice walk passing succulents and houses. Walking Los Angeles brings out its beauty: flowering jacaranda trees burst in violet bunches and prehistoric silk floss trees with their spiny trunk and garish red flowers transform from pods to cottony confetti. There are hibiscus and morning glories, rock gardens, rose hedges, jasmine, cedar, palms all collecting in a geographically anomalous urban botanical party. Imagination grows here, under the sunshine. People are outside. They walk with yoga mats and dogs, jog but never rush. They seem lighter than New Yorkers. Murals and street art declare cultural overlaps. And streets of food bring the foreign populations to life. Its diversity is everywhere, from the collection of plants to the motley asylum of cultures.
I look out, tired of solo expeditions. I used to gather the bits of things to show someone. To somedays say, “Look.” I found intimacy in the small birds and wispy wildflowers on the trails. The overlapping texts of stickers and spray paint was a cacophony of disparate dialogue. And still, I find all of it astoundingly beautiful.
Two miles away, there is an empty apartment full of inanimate things where I fall asleep on the couch nightly, trying not to think of things and people I cannot touch. There is a cavern growing inside me, full of echoes and emptiness where I used to feel full of meat and desire. I am at the bottom of it. Or is it me? I feel all tired out, reaching up and rooting down. Three years of isolation in this beautiful city makes me feel like Tantalus, always just out of reach of satiation and survival. My mind is starving, heart parched. This is a city for lovers and families, old friendships and histories. People collect poolside, in backyards, by barbeques, in clusters organic and established as the flowering trees that make me happy. This is a city of people who know one another and I am a constant interloper. “How did I get here?” alone on mountaintops, taking pictures no one wants to see. Chasing love. Running from aloneness. Moving out of necessity.
So this is success. An invigorating job where I plan, create and lead with all my heartfelt brain-makings. This is success. I travel for big meetings, investing time and money on behalf of an international organization. I travel in cabs and through empty hotel rooms. I come home to the messy neglect I left. The flowers are still by the bed. I cannot be bothered to throw them away. There are a few dishes. There is no one to complain. The refrigerator is empty because I don’t like to cook anymore. The china is dusty. The pans seem heavy. I am tired of frozen portions of leftover food. These were homemaking things. And this is not home. I pray through the silence that this is not home in any true sense.
The teddy bear stares at me from the floor, where I abandoned it. My running shoes sit somewhat dusty from the last forced jog. They say it will make me feel better to excercise. More alone things. And I want to smash all the plates and bowls that come in sets to shatter expectations I hold. I had friends once, in various places. So many friends. But this is success. And I am unhappy.
“Did you see that?” I want to say.
“Yes!” I want to hear.
I want to look out in the same direction. I want to speak a language where the places we play can be seen.
The voices echo back: make yourself happy alone. And I am the kid in the backyard. I never liked the neighbor girls who played pretend-mommy when they could be superheroes. All their barbies were named Barbie. The dog was better company. The dead coy pond in the backyard was a great sea. The jasmine was a forest.
Couples and families, partnered people, and the people who can take for granted the little things in the day. They forget to memorize the little moles and habits and constellating idiosyncrasies of their loved one. The power of a hug. The warmth of “how was your day?” Or maybe they are the happily remiss on purpose, allowing empty space to simply be open space.
We need people. I need people. I groom plans, look for escape hatches from this lovely city. Desperate to save myself from the beauties that break my heart like waves erode rocks. And I don’t want to be left with a handful of sand. Losing love again as it slips between my fingers. Losing dreams. Losing each other. Losing a place to exist outside the backyards and books of childhood. More than love, losing that human who looked out and into the world with you. And you were, for a moment, not alone.
“Did you see that…?”
The sun is at that dusky place where all the buildings get soft. I would like to send a picture of it, like I used to deliver sunsets and little moments from the days. Where to? It is more than immediacy or miles. It is about that certain place where the heart and mind play, where I can look up from the window and say, “Look.” And someone will respond. “Did you see that?!”
Finding solace in distractions, I create the habits of coffee and chores, plan on recommitting to the gym, create the markers of success I have always excelled in. “You are so smart. You show so much resilience. You have survived. You are loving.” Yes, I am these things. I am alone in this ecosystem of wonder and thought. I walk through the day’s necessities, being practical as I can. And at the end of the day, we are all animals hoping to find a warm spot and a safe shelter. We are all the children we left behind.
“Look.”
Pneumatic Devotion 