Trip to La-La Land: Last day

DAY SEVENTEEN

Last day in La-La Land. A full-circle day. For gifts and souvenirs, I buy bottles of my friends Litty and Melkon’s infused vodka, which is still not available in Mass; until then I’ll smuggle it like a bootlegger). I snag some merchandise -- CDs, shot glasses -- from my friend Sage’s band The Lucky Stars.

I run into Michelle, the friend I’ve been staying with, at Chango, the cafe that’s been my workspace. She’s finally beating her cough, but her boyfriend Sage is getting sick. Their son Weston sings silly songs and still tries to sneak up on me in the kitchen while I’m making dinner. I’ve enjoyed being part of this little family this past week.

I walk with Sage to the local school, his voting place, on Super Tuesday. After casting your vote in California, you get a voter-verifiable paper receipt. I like this. Proof you were there, part of democracy for a day. I lunch with another friend whose couch was my crash pad for two nights. If I total up my meals out over the past 16 days, I’ll be depressed. I don’t, and brace myself for the credit card bill.

In the early evening, after a meal of miso soup and sushi, Sage drives me to the Long Beach airport to catch my red eye to Logan. I’ll have a coffee at the same outdoor airport cafe as Day One. I know a wet, grim, cold Boston awaits. What I don’t know is I’ll get to watch the Super Tuesday results on TV the entire flight home, stretched out on a bank of three
empty seats. Nice.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. This is now, not the future. On this lazy, two and a half week LA break, perhaps I did not accomplish what I set out to do. But other unseen goals were met. 2008 is new. Already, I am different, in tiny, immeasurable increments. On my final walk in Echo Park, I see the sky, transparent all the way back to its infinite wellspring of blue.
Palms tinted with the orange of an exhausted sun. But the sun will be back, to try again.