When you are away from home, it is surprising what you miss. Of course, I miss my family and friends dearly, but that is expected. It is the degree at which, more or less, that is usually unexpected. What is even more surprising for me are those things that are not people that I miss and what I don’t. The big thing that I miss is Los Angeles. I miss the hustle and bustle. I miss the pretentiousness, humbleness, and kindness that could be found in different areas of the city. I miss the mix of language, culture, restaurants. I miss the urban with the surrounding nature of the mountains. I miss the million things to do. I miss the midnight bike rides, riding down Los Angeles’s famous boulevards with only a few passing cars. I miss the baseball games in Dodger Stadium.
It is not abnormal for me to miss a place, but Los Angeles felt special to me. It is layered heavily. There is a new discovery every time you peel back a layer. It is one of those cities that improves with time spent there. I guess to get me through, I will have to keep listening to Randy Newman’s “I love LA,” Tom Petty’s “Free Falling,” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” (from Dodger baseball games) to assuage my missing LA.
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