Nostalgia For Places I Never Left
Entering back into the real world has me in my feelings...
Welcome to my substack #5. Soundtrack to this post: Deja Vu, Real Love Baby, Your Power, Dying in the Subtlety
1. As I was sorting through the box of old family photos of memories that did not belong to me, I was pulled into the nostalgia of the moments. The Kodak photographs were faded in color. In them was the green velvet sofa I would draw on with my fingers or the rattan dining chairs. There were so many photos taken at picnics in parks or amongst the stones on the beach. Most of the older pictures were dawat photos of people sitting around on sheets on the floor and eating or tourist photos of people standing stiffly in front of monuments. When I look at these photos it’s not nostalgia of the place that I feel, but rather of the moment. We traveled so much when I was a kid, a different elementary school for every year, that my nostalgia was rarely attached to places, but more the moments and the things we traveled with.
2. I think, possibly, this pandemic is the longest stretch of time I’ve stayed in Southern California for my whole life. I grew up in the burbs of Southern California, but I never really lived in one place longer than a couple of years. In the past decade after I moved back to L.A. permanently, I was always traveling, either for work or for art. I was constantly on the move, but I didn’t mind if it meant I could see new places. I loved to see the world, especially if I could do it for a cause and on someone else’s dime.
3. I think about the echoes that people leave behind. It’s not a ghost, really. It’s the lingering energy you leave behind in a place when you are alive. It’s the scent, the energy, the fading thumbprint in a space.
4. Living cooped up in this pandemic made me nostalgic for this city I live in. I’m nostalgic for this place even though I never left. I miss this place even though I’m right here.
5. I’ve always loved Los Angeles. Not the city that you see in the movies, but the real L.A. This city exists in stratas and subcultures and has so many types of people you are sure to find your people. It’s a city where you can live a mile from your Ex and you will never see them for the rest of your life, and a city where you will see your crush multiple times a week when the universe thinks it is needed.
6. I am already sad and nostalgic for the outdoor pandemic hangs and sharing sunsets with friends. I have discovered so much of the outside version of Los Angeles. The social distanced hang in the secret glen at Angel’s Point in Elysian Park. The hikes to helipads and hidden gardens in Griffith Park. Beach hangs and prayers at by the waves. Gossiping on verandas and in driveways.
7. I think about the ghosts I’ve made with lovers across this city. The echos of kisses with multiple guys at the Griffith Observatory (if I take you to the observatory, good chance I have a crush.) Dancing in the Chinatown Plaza when Firecracker did outdoor holiday parties. Flirting in Little Tokyo at Tuesday Night Project, possibly, after I performed because that is when I’m the bravest flirt. A late-night date skateboarding on longboards in Abbott Kinney when the streets were empty. Putting on eyeliner on a bassist while sitting on a DTLA sidewalk before the punk show. Singing awkward romance songs in a two person karaoke room in Koreatown. Kissing in double parked cars, because what is more Los Angeles than that?
8. I’m nostalgic always for a good Los Angeles summer that hits all the marks. They smell like forest fire smoke and marine layer and idyllic romance. They include a group outing to the Hollywood Bowl, a beach bonfire with halal s’mores, feeling grunions have sex on your feet in the waves in the middle of the night, poetry resounding off the walls of Little Tokyo, concerts under the stars on the Santa Monica pier, watching movies outside while sitting in a cemetery of celebrities and laughing at jokes by stand-up friends. The sound of Los Angeles summer is always peppered with illegal fireworks popping off. And sometimes an earthquake.
9. I miss the taste of fried rice in duck oil after eating the KBBQ crispy duck. The chewiness of pulled noodles and lamb at the Uyghur restaurant. Mixing the perfect amount of sauce into a bowl of pho. Rotating cumin lamb skewers over hot coals. Taking the flesh off the mackerel at BCD Tofu House. Licking the non-dairy Honeycomb ice cream cone at Van Leeuwan. Potato balls at Portos. Paradise Cake from King’s Hawaiian. Kichuri and chai on rainy days from Deshi. Horchata lattes at Tierra Madre. A fresh fishy bowl of hwe dup bap doused in gochujang. Shucking oysters at picnic tables bought in a netted bag from the food truck on the Ventura Beach.
10. The Santa Ana winds are a vibe. The way the palm trees sway, tumbleweed on freeways, hot air prickling skin so dry and jinns dancing a circle fire on your back.
11. I’m even nostalgic of protesting and taking over the streets. The power of shutting down Wilshire with the masses, holding protest signs on Grand, screaming into bullhorns at LAX, the candlelit vigils in the plaza at the Aratani Theatre. I miss hugging and crying and protecting comrades at these times. It’s how we show love.
12. I have learned this pandemic that my love language is sharing experiences with other people. A grown-up version of a sleepover is renting a house for a weekend in the desert or forest or beach. Going vintage shopping together, cooking for each other, watching bad movies together, getting elevated together. Taking sexy Instagram photos of each other because we are our own witnesses. Telling fiction stories that we are writing to each other and painting on canvass next to each other. Making craft projects for one another.
13. I wonder if in 18 months my energy echoes have faded completely or if they are calling us back to these spots. Will there be echoes anew?
14. I am still scared to return to reality in this pandemic. I hold these past 18 months preciously – the slowness, the focus on healing, the endless days of artmaking, the boundaries that were made with people. I am ready for it to end. But I’m not sure I’m ready to return.