We shared our first kiss while studying poetry in the foothills of the Rockies. “I’ll move anywhere with you,” I declared one year later. “Anywhere except L.A.” After a childhood on the suburban edges of a Midwestern prairie, I wanted big sky and mountains almost as much as I wanted Domi. But he won out, and we ended up here in his hometown.
Domi had wooed me well. Now he wanted Los Angeles to seduce me. He showered me with scarves and necklaces as we perused the trendy Melrose Avenue shops. We sipped cocktails at the Dresden while swaying along to Marty & Elayne. To prove I hadn’t lost the mountains by moving here, he drove his Jeep Wrangler down Pacific Coast Highway and up into Topanga Canyon for dinner underneath the fairy lights at the Inn of the Seventh Ray.
I began to acclimate to L.A.’s charm, but my celebrity encounters gave me away as a foreigner. At Du-Par’s in the Original Farmers Market, I implored my city-bred boyfriend not to look at the movie star eating pancakes by himself at the counter. I thought I had whispered discreetly, but both Domi and the movie star laughed so loudly the whole restaurant turned to look at me. While we tossed back margaritas at Mexico City, I resolved not to embarrass myself again by staring at the lead in my favorite television show sitting two booths over. Yet by the end of her meal, she had slunk down so low her head was almost level to the table.
One day we hiked up past Griffith Observatory to the top of Mt. Hollywood. I sat facing westward, drinking in the big sky view that stretched all the way to the ocean. The only other group of hikers clustered together, facing eastward. When they left, I gushed that they had been members of a famous rock band. “But that’s not the point,” I said. “The point is that I didn’t scare them off. I finally belong here!”
Domi agreed. On a weekend trip to Baja, we stopped for lobster at Puerto Nuevo. We bought cheap rings in Ensenada and exchanged them under the full moon. Back in Los Angeles, we performed our wedding vows — a poem we wrote together — for friends and family among the pepper trees and roses at the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens in Cypress Park.
As educators in South Los Angeles schools, we worked long hours. Other than the occasional Lakers game (Domi’s mom had season tickets), nights out grew fewer and farther in between. “All we really do on the weekends is grab burritos at Baja Fresh and movies from Blockbuster,” I remarked one day. “Might as well have a baby.”
We bought a fixer-upper in Eagle Rock. Thanks to my high school students, I had become as enamored with L.A.’s murals and graffiti as I had once been with its celebrities. So Domi covered the baby’s walls with elaborate paintings of dragons, pirates, astronauts and a purple parrot (Magic Johnson) dunking on a green parrot (Larry Bird).
Through our child’s eyes, I found myself falling even deeper in love with Los Angeles. Domi and I pushed their stroller down the Venice Beach Boardwalk, stopping to listen to Harry Perry and watch a man on roller skates juggling while wearing a Speedo. We dug our toes into the sand as we waited for our names to be called for a seat at Gladstones in Malibu. We celebrated my students’ quinceañeras in ornate halls across South L.A.
Closer to home we walked for a mile under the bright holiday lights strung along the road at Griffith Park. We went trick-or-treating on Eagle Rock’s Hill Drive and stopped to watch a flash mob perform “Thriller.” We spent Saturday mornings watching trainers walk the horses proudly and slowly around the track at Santa Anita Park.
As our child grew older, I found myself transforming into a (literal) soccer mom and discovering whole new pockets of Southern California. Some of the soccer pitches were nearby, nestled in the Crescenta Valley foothills. Gradually, we found our perimeter widening. We traversed the 210 Freeway to the 605 Freeway for nighttime practices at a sports park across from the venue where our kid had once spent weekends dressed as a knight, riding the wooden ship that swung back and forth at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. We pushed farther eastward to spend countless weekends on the sidelines at Norco’s vast expanse of soccer fields and southward to the fields underneath the giant orange balloon at Orange County’s Great Park.
Throughout all the soccer years, practices at Pasadena High School remained a constant. On the days when it was my turn to drive the carpool, I dropped the kids off, then drove a mile up the road to Eaton Canyon. Under the day’s last light, I hiked from the parking lot, past the nature center and along the stream. I passed the turnoff to the waterfall, climbed the steep paved hill and touched the Pinecrest Gate leading out to the streets of Altadena. Then I headed back in the orange-pink twilight. Sometimes I would pass deer, sometimes another hiker. But mostly, the trail felt all mine. On those evenings most of all, I knew I had finally made my home here. Here in a city bounded by mountains and teeming with magic moments.
This is a love letter to Domi, who helped me learn to love Los Angeles. This is a love letter to Los Angeles, the backdrop to our love story as a family. And this is a love letter to everyone who has ever walked through Eaton Canyon alone at dusk. Someday we’ll pass each other there on the trail again. Someday.
The author is a longtime L.A. educator who lives in Eagle Rock.
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