written last night

I have exactly twelve hours left to be at this antipodes of the country, this blissfully ignored nether end of America, the toejam between Hollywood and Vegas... this place where people who just want a decent life without winter are clogging the valleys until the overflow spills into the unzoned tracts of the foothills and chaparral... I am here, with the window open and the desert cool raising hairs on my arms, listening to the same music -- the Gurdas Mann, the latin ska, the Byrne protégés, Mongo Santamaria and Aram Khachaturian and other classics -- and the music sounds better at this remove from the nocturnal heat of New York.

Is that right? Can weather really make music better? I was up in Eaton Canyon today with an old high school friend, and I realized I was busier looking around and seeing things than I remembered being when I was younger. I could be misremembering. I blame it on computers, all this visual focus. I forgot to smell and climb things, and stick my toes in the cold water. (It's not true, though, that I was all about the other senses when I was younger, that's a misremembrance. I was all about looking out over the Valley from Henninger Flats at night and fondly thinking it was my own jewel box, try as I would to exchange it for the daytime jewels of New England in autumn.) Sometimes I think I would move back to Pasadena just for the smell of bay leaves and sage at night, and for the smell of the sea only an hour away. Can a smell alone make a place worth living in? Heaven knows the smell of urine and cab soot makes me want to run away from New York some days.

My father wants me to come back to the family business. My friends show off their small but pleasant apartments in Silverlake, and smile shyly. I think I am making a life in New York, but am I enjoying myself? Sometimes I catch myself coming off the subway with my shoulders up around my ears from stress. Is being able to walk to a canyon enough to make life satisfying? Am I only content here because I can take a free ride on my parents' and grandparents' affluence? What the hell am I supposed to be doing with myself?

* * *

I was thrilled to arrive at the airport and find Sylvie, Robert, and Chris there in assorted hats, carrying a sign that read "GEORGE" and looking blank when I approached them; I had fun watching Sylvie mug and dance as I stuck my headphones in her ears and introduced her to new music; but the best memory of this entire trip, hands down, was watching the whole family unwittingly ladle spoonfuls of flavored body paint, which Sylvie had bought for use with her boyfriend, onto their sundaes.