I just flew home from Los Angeles today. That city is the embodiment of contradictions. Staggering wealth and crushing poverty. Almost famous and full of shit. Art and artifice.
Immersing myself in the grit of the Angels never fails to take my breath away.
The man who smells like an airplane. Hair that might as well have gone through a car wash. Glimpse by all-seeing glimpse, a portrait of the most distressing great city I know.
Huge fan of changing times, places, faces, perceptions. I wonder if you did say the peace/power or no? Maybe peace would give us more power. In the long run? Or the short run? Hmmm.
I've come to love my wild-ass graying hair. And yours.
Peace would give us more of the kind of power I think will make a real difference - what a gift that person gave me to warn me that I was headed for the kind that would not. Janice, I LOVE your wild-ass graying hair - and mine. xo
Feeling some STUFF after this one, Marya. How every moment is an expose, if we let it be. How peace is power as far as I'm concerned. How the word bosom sticks in my craw but flows from you like syrup. How I might be ill-suited for L.A. but ought to want to test that theory. How I'm glad to know you.
Elizabeth, the truth is that my father reads this newsletter and I cannot bring myself to be any more graphic than 'bosom' and 'bust' :P What a beautiful notion, and one I'll spend some time with - that every moment is an expose - isn't that the nature of people who think in stories and images - narrative writers, poets, filmmakers? the world line by line, image by image, frame by frame. I'm so glad to know you.
Whenever I think of LA, I think of the first time I was there. I was traveling with an actress friend, who knew people in Tinseltown. Our first night there, we ended up on the rooftop deck of a director type, looking out over the city. It was so vast, so lit up, so sepia-toned in my mind. I think I have some a picture of the two of us on that rooftop. I can see it in my mind anyways.
What a gorgeous image - whether the photo exists or not - it puts me in mind of a song that has stayed with me, but now that I'm reaching for them, the artist and the lyric itself are gone - I think you and I should ramble LA together sometime. I bet we'd see a very different world together. xo
Thank YOU, Wendy - I've been thinking about the ability of short forms to capture depth rather than breadth at times, and I'm glad to know it's working here and there!
I’ve been to LA a few times and my longest stay was four days. The others - an extended train layover - a long flight layover - a quick stop on the way to somewhere else, San Francisco actually. On the extended stay a sign at the elevator doors states “please ignore the gunshots” just as I heard them. I did not read the rest, my body instinctively shrinking, disappearing as a possible target. Chagrined to find rest of sign warned of a movie shoot in progress at the corner outside the hotel.
Sometimes I read your words and I think, "I cannot comment on this. It is too delicious. I will ruin it." Like if you were to eat the best tapas of your life, and someone asked you afterward what the best bite was, and you were to just stall out and feel ever so slightly resentful at needing to pin such a nebulous thing down. Don't ask me that! It was transcendent! Leave me alone in my ecstacy! I am undone. Shhhhh.....
well if I never hear another kind word about my work again I think you’ve pretty much said everything a writer could ever hope to hear. thank you, Kendall! what a gift you are!!
I'll happily follow up with this: as a reader who has not often commented on your writing (see aforementioned stalling, above), I am mostly overcome by how frequently I lose myself in your words. And by this, I mean that I forget I exist. When your shoe falls off, it is my shoe. My eyes are preoccupied by the ample bosom. I taste the wine; I feel my head get heavy. I push through the wall of airport-smelling men. This kind of porousness is magic. And it ain't easy. It makes me feel like, if someone mentioned your name, I would say, "Oh, Marya? Yeah, I know her well. We've been through some shit together." This is why writing is so vulnerable and valuable. It blurs the line between self and other, and this IS the groundwork for peace. Thanks for leading the way. More of that, please. ;)
Your descriptions create images so sharp I could step into them (not that I might want to.. it’s LA after all 🤭 but I love them for their juiciness)
I’ve met some genuine folks there on my surgical trips yet they are few and far between.
Dressing like myself, in my hoodie sweatshirt, leggings or jeans with hair up in a clip thingy, I mostly got sniffs into the air as if someone had farted… it wasn’t me!
LA is the epitome of living in the paradox. I remember standing at the edge of the Santa Monica pier at dusk, tossing rose petals into the ocean after participating in a ceremony with a Hindu Brahmin priest. The memory seared into my brain and onto my heart. Walking back toward the Airbnb, wondering how I could ever leave such a place while desperately longing for my desert home.
Playlist: Just home from a swing through California that bypassed LA (Woman), but hit Oceanside (Hotel California), La Quinta (Amelia), Antelope Valley (Big eyed beans from Venus), Ventura (Highway), Morro Bay (Shangri La - Knopfler), Salinas (need suggestions!), and the Delta (theme from Deliverance?). Now I need to write it up!
I grew up milking goats out in the sticks where our phone was on a party line with two neighboring houses. Water came from a pipe that ran up to a spring in the high rolling hills above our little valley. We had three cows, two ancient horses, an enormous pig named Desdemona who served as our garbage disposal, the aforementioned half dozen goats, a coop full of chickens, and several barn cats. Didn't have a television until a hand-me-down black and white set came to my family in the late 50s.
So -- naturally -- I ended up in LA for forty years toiling in the salt mines of the film/TV biz. Go figure ... but once I'd done my time, I bailed on El Lay -- Lost Angeles -- and headed back north even deeper into the woods. I'll never kick all the Tinsel Town dust off my boots, and certainly had some fun there amidst the struggles, but enough was enough.
I've always thought of LA as the Doomed City of the Future -- much like ancient Pompei before Vesuvius blew her top, a nice place to visit ... but only for a while.
Love these missives from the road. Safe travels to you and Luna.
Naturally - ha! - of course you built a life (and a stellar career) in LA, Michael. I will have you know that out in the wilds of Walnut Creek - back in the 70s, before it was ritzy - someone gave my father a pig as a gift - we named her Diane Fineswine :P
Funny, anecdotal memoir is definitely your super power… and right on about LA. I returned here after 35 years in Oregon & elsewheres, and outer image is still all there is in this mega city. But proximity to loved ones not long on the planet is over-riding the smell of cedar and rain. So thank you for the empathetic laughter this morning, from one nomad to another.
Oh, I bet you miss the smell of Oregon mornings, Sara! And yes, there are times when coming in from the wild is crucial. My name is pronounced MAR-yah. Think Sonya (SON-yah) - same language of origin.
I just flew home from Los Angeles today. That city is the embodiment of contradictions. Staggering wealth and crushing poverty. Almost famous and full of shit. Art and artifice.
Immersing myself in the grit of the Angels never fails to take my breath away.
Beautifully said - and I have the same, equally contradictory, response. Thank you for commenting, I'm so glad to have you here!
The man who smells like an airplane. Hair that might as well have gone through a car wash. Glimpse by all-seeing glimpse, a portrait of the most distressing great city I know.
"the most distressing great city" > a line for the ages, Rona - you always floor me!! thank you!
Thank you. To be blunt, I can’t stand LA
Same 🤣
“I want peace. Not power.”
A-fucken-men, Marya.
Thank you for such a vivid and thought-provoking piece.
So appreciate your comment and your presence, Sonny - and here's to peace.
Huge fan of changing times, places, faces, perceptions. I wonder if you did say the peace/power or no? Maybe peace would give us more power. In the long run? Or the short run? Hmmm.
I've come to love my wild-ass graying hair. And yours.
~J
Peace would give us more of the kind of power I think will make a real difference - what a gift that person gave me to warn me that I was headed for the kind that would not. Janice, I LOVE your wild-ass graying hair - and mine. xo
Feeling some STUFF after this one, Marya. How every moment is an expose, if we let it be. How peace is power as far as I'm concerned. How the word bosom sticks in my craw but flows from you like syrup. How I might be ill-suited for L.A. but ought to want to test that theory. How I'm glad to know you.
Elizabeth, the truth is that my father reads this newsletter and I cannot bring myself to be any more graphic than 'bosom' and 'bust' :P What a beautiful notion, and one I'll spend some time with - that every moment is an expose - isn't that the nature of people who think in stories and images - narrative writers, poets, filmmakers? the world line by line, image by image, frame by frame. I'm so glad to know you.
Ha! ::waves at Mr. Hornbacher::
When I'm approaching the world with an eye for seeing, I certainly see a vast collection of small, wonderful stories.
Hope to see you tomorrow! :)
I'll be there!!
Another gorgeous postcard, my friend.
Whenever I think of LA, I think of the first time I was there. I was traveling with an actress friend, who knew people in Tinseltown. Our first night there, we ended up on the rooftop deck of a director type, looking out over the city. It was so vast, so lit up, so sepia-toned in my mind. I think I have some a picture of the two of us on that rooftop. I can see it in my mind anyways.
What a gorgeous image - whether the photo exists or not - it puts me in mind of a song that has stayed with me, but now that I'm reaching for them, the artist and the lyric itself are gone - I think you and I should ramble LA together sometime. I bet we'd see a very different world together. xo
Yes! That would be an absolute treat.
Love these glimpses of what's beyond/beneath the superficial, Marya. Thank you.
Thank YOU, Wendy - I've been thinking about the ability of short forms to capture depth rather than breadth at times, and I'm glad to know it's working here and there!
Wonderful writing.
Thank you, Susan!! So appreciate you being here!
I’ve been to LA a few times and my longest stay was four days. The others - an extended train layover - a long flight layover - a quick stop on the way to somewhere else, San Francisco actually. On the extended stay a sign at the elevator doors states “please ignore the gunshots” just as I heard them. I did not read the rest, my body instinctively shrinking, disappearing as a possible target. Chagrined to find rest of sign warned of a movie shoot in progress at the corner outside the hotel.
Strange indeed
Please write this poem xo
Sometimes I read your words and I think, "I cannot comment on this. It is too delicious. I will ruin it." Like if you were to eat the best tapas of your life, and someone asked you afterward what the best bite was, and you were to just stall out and feel ever so slightly resentful at needing to pin such a nebulous thing down. Don't ask me that! It was transcendent! Leave me alone in my ecstacy! I am undone. Shhhhh.....
well if I never hear another kind word about my work again I think you’ve pretty much said everything a writer could ever hope to hear. thank you, Kendall! what a gift you are!!
I'll happily follow up with this: as a reader who has not often commented on your writing (see aforementioned stalling, above), I am mostly overcome by how frequently I lose myself in your words. And by this, I mean that I forget I exist. When your shoe falls off, it is my shoe. My eyes are preoccupied by the ample bosom. I taste the wine; I feel my head get heavy. I push through the wall of airport-smelling men. This kind of porousness is magic. And it ain't easy. It makes me feel like, if someone mentioned your name, I would say, "Oh, Marya? Yeah, I know her well. We've been through some shit together." This is why writing is so vulnerable and valuable. It blurs the line between self and other, and this IS the groundwork for peace. Thanks for leading the way. More of that, please. ;)
You know…when you put it this way, about a way to pave a path to peace - I am reminded of what it’s for, and I’m so grateful for the reminder!
Your descriptions create images so sharp I could step into them (not that I might want to.. it’s LA after all 🤭 but I love them for their juiciness)
I’ve met some genuine folks there on my surgical trips yet they are few and far between.
Dressing like myself, in my hoodie sweatshirt, leggings or jeans with hair up in a clip thingy, I mostly got sniffs into the air as if someone had farted… it wasn’t me!
oh I laughed - and I feel like more people should go out dressed in a hoodie & clip thingy ;) xoxo
LA is the epitome of living in the paradox. I remember standing at the edge of the Santa Monica pier at dusk, tossing rose petals into the ocean after participating in a ceremony with a Hindu Brahmin priest. The memory seared into my brain and onto my heart. Walking back toward the Airbnb, wondering how I could ever leave such a place while desperately longing for my desert home.
well that’s an image for the ages, Paulette!! Lordy, thank you!! xo
A high compliment-thank you, Marya!
I loved this!
Oh, and all the quotes. And the observations of people. A gem of a piece, Marya
Thank you, John!! So happy we've bumped into each other here - and the playlist!! what a thing!
Marya, you make me want to write. You make me want to be a better writer. Thank you.
thank you, John!!
Playlist: Just home from a swing through California that bypassed LA (Woman), but hit Oceanside (Hotel California), La Quinta (Amelia), Antelope Valley (Big eyed beans from Venus), Ventura (Highway), Morro Bay (Shangri La - Knopfler), Salinas (need suggestions!), and the Delta (theme from Deliverance?). Now I need to write it up!
"One day up near Salinas, Lord, I let him slip away
He's lookin' for that home, and I hope he finds it"
I grew up milking goats out in the sticks where our phone was on a party line with two neighboring houses. Water came from a pipe that ran up to a spring in the high rolling hills above our little valley. We had three cows, two ancient horses, an enormous pig named Desdemona who served as our garbage disposal, the aforementioned half dozen goats, a coop full of chickens, and several barn cats. Didn't have a television until a hand-me-down black and white set came to my family in the late 50s.
So -- naturally -- I ended up in LA for forty years toiling in the salt mines of the film/TV biz. Go figure ... but once I'd done my time, I bailed on El Lay -- Lost Angeles -- and headed back north even deeper into the woods. I'll never kick all the Tinsel Town dust off my boots, and certainly had some fun there amidst the struggles, but enough was enough.
I've always thought of LA as the Doomed City of the Future -- much like ancient Pompei before Vesuvius blew her top, a nice place to visit ... but only for a while.
Love these missives from the road. Safe travels to you and Luna.
Naturally - ha! - of course you built a life (and a stellar career) in LA, Michael. I will have you know that out in the wilds of Walnut Creek - back in the 70s, before it was ritzy - someone gave my father a pig as a gift - we named her Diane Fineswine :P
Oh, that's good!
PS… how Do you pronounce your name?
Funny, anecdotal memoir is definitely your super power… and right on about LA. I returned here after 35 years in Oregon & elsewheres, and outer image is still all there is in this mega city. But proximity to loved ones not long on the planet is over-riding the smell of cedar and rain. So thank you for the empathetic laughter this morning, from one nomad to another.
Oh, I bet you miss the smell of Oregon mornings, Sara! And yes, there are times when coming in from the wild is crucial. My name is pronounced MAR-yah. Think Sonya (SON-yah) - same language of origin.
Thank you… I am now in the know… I so enjoy you!