In Praise of Small Towns: Rediscovering Your Roots

For the past week I've been visiting my hometown and it has enveloped my bruised grown-up self with a warm mix of community and nostalgia. It's a small town in northern California, the kind where ex-cheerleaders slowly go to seed over the decades and your friends think you're more brilliant than you really are. Where the slow lazy days of summer get you out of your car and onto a bike. Where strangers say hello as they pass by on the street and everyone gives up the right of way at an intersection...except for young guys in pickup trucks...but they're that way everywhere. Most days are highlighted with the pleasant surprise of running into friends or relatives and you often find a bag of home grown tomatoes on your doorstep from a neighbor.  Hard to believe? I totally agree...but it does exist and I'm being wooed by it. 

When I was growing up I couldn't wait to leave and get on with my life. Now I return two to three times a year on holidays, or when needed. As a kid I was oblivious to the incredible beauty of the surroundings. An agricultural center (rice and almonds), the fields put on a rhythmic and constant series of changing views. Over time, each visit home was also punctuated by pilgrimages to remembered sites. As the years went by the sites evolved and recording those changes became a more central interest in my creative life. 

What I love about L.A. is how much variety it has. On one street I can go through Japan, Korea, Mexico, El Salvador, India...it's a movable feast. I like being able to find the last letterpress printer, seeing great art whenever I want and the first run of that obscure foreign film. It's been my home for a long time and I love telling its stories. 

But small towns have indie bookstores, accessible music scenes, real bike paths and a sense of connection to the people around you that I find soothing to the soul. It's said "you can't go home again" but in many ways home itself moves forward to meet you as you continue on your own path. New faces inhabit most of my old haunts...but the former imprint does remain and so the experience becomes this interesting blend of the new and old - connecting to my younger (wilder) self without the intensity of the actual experience.


I fully understand that a big part of my gratitude at this homecoming comes from being somewhere other than the stage of my recent troubles...but what I've truly gotten from this experience is the reminder that there are many ways to live our lives...with many paths to happiness. It was very important to realize that my current life is not the only one - in a way it's much like my experience with creativity - learning to go beyond the idea of reality that my brain has mapped out becomes a pathway to peace and happiness.

Pretending I'm in Paris

In college I had a friend who used to say "I love sitting in the cafeteria, drinking coffee, pretending I'm in New York, and I love sitting in New York, drinking coffee, pretending I'm in Paris." My weekly ritual involves going to Porto's in the morning, drinking coffee and pretending I'm in Argentina - Porto's has a stronger latin vibe. 

There's no denying that there's this mystique about Paris, a hold-over from a Hemingway era - that was where you went to become an artist - to really break free and become something new. Even now, I wonder if I should be living somewhere else - what if I moved to San Francisco (as close to Paris as Cali gets)? Would life be better? Would my art career suddenly take wings? Would I break free from my pre-conceptions and become the totally new 2.0 version of me? 

Is there something wrong with pretending I'm somewhere else? I do it most of the time, because let's face it, Burbank isn't that exciting and for some reason L.A. lends itself to pretending to be somewhere else. The fact is I'm okay with living in L.A., but I don't really live in the "real" version of it. I'm always hunting for some romantic idealized "noir" past and I know I'm not alone. There's the Blade Runner version of a melting pot distopia, the Heat version of late night isolation and, my favorite, the Double Indemnity version of the valley with its hills, palms and Spanish Revival architecture. 

Does it matter where you live? My step-daughter moved to New York after graduation and it's truly the right place for her - she lives a lovely hipster life in Brooklyn and you can feel the energy she gets from her surroundings. But what about the rest of us that can't pull up stakes and move - how do we work our lives so that our environment feeds us? 

The french have a term terrior, which means "from the land." It's used to describe how a specific location can impart a characteristic to wine. It's a fairly ancient belief, that location, climate, and soil leave an imprint. So where we live really does make a difference - and maybe it's important to feel more grounded and think about how where you live leaves its mark on you. I'm still very moved by that older version of L.A. and that's what get's me up and out each week shooting and finding new ways to tell its stories. 

On the other hand, I'm still going to Porto's and imagine the broad boulevards of Buenos Aries are outside filled with beautiful, cosmopolitan Argentinians.