My Iconic LA

MY grandmother still lives in Brentwood, in the home my mother grew up in. To me, Los Angeles meant Grandma's house, digging for sand crabs at the beach, eating grilled cheese sandwiches at the Jonathan Club, shopping at the Brentwood Mart, and driving up to fresh warm air filled with the flowery scents of my grandmother's large front yard, always in bloom. Los Angeles was an experience of privilege and luxury.

Through some turmoil and a great deal of adventure I have parted (mostly) with that default fairytale-like conception of LA; "real life" carries on here, almost as it would anywhere else. But Los Angles still offers more than any other city I can imagine. Even on my worst days, driving through Malibu ignites a sense of calm and excitement I have only found here.

This town is one of stereotypes. Angelenos, transplants, and the media breed and cultivate them. People take pride in being from a certain neighborhood, essentially finding their niche in an abundant pond. From the San Fernando Valley to Silverlake there is a stereotypical resident from each neighborhood, and I could tell you about them. One in particular was an aspiring artist living in her expansive, downtown loft with an enviable outdoor patio with a skyline view, only a few floors above a street corner that smelled of trash and piss.

There's the unavoidable "LA" stereotype that permeates it all. That sense you must be beautiful and haughty, "Hollywood" if you will, and dress and inconspicuously as Paris Hilton. It's a fear and secret fascination that once ate away at me. Most of me hated it, but there is an admitted seduction in "keeping up with the Jones'" here in LA. Though this idealized image of perfection is truly part of the culture, there is so much more.

Most intriguing is the unexplored convergence of cultures here, found in the many unexplored districts. I love to travel and am beginning to realized the vast global presence here. From the Latino population, whose roots here are commemorated on Olivera Street, to Chinatown and through Little Ethiopia, each neighborhood offers a degree of cultural authenticity not often considered in the mainstream conceptualization of LA. Undoubtedly, the characters in each place enhance and enliven my own sensibility about Los Angeles, probing further at my sense of curiosity.

The vast setting, a trademark of LA, has made me love the city more. Getting lost here, navigating on and off ramps, the u-turns, and unruly drivers, illuminated the city's expansive landscape as much as getting to my destination and meeting people. Perhaps it's a trauma bond, but the city is like a surrogate of sorts. A large pat of me was born here, it's been a "coming of age" experience for me. Most exciting is the more I know, the more I realize there is to know. My conceptualization of LA has moved beyond exiting within a stereotype, and has become a playground in which the more I discover, the more I see beyond; something like Mary Poppin's bag of never ending wonders.

-- Sarah Kruberg