While working on this story one morning this song came on the radio. It felt appropriate to the particular time and place of the piece.
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“Come to New York,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said.
Ok, so no one actually said that. There was likely too much meme-spotting happening in those last days. The days where I sat killing time, waiting for my old life to end and new one to begin.
When you’re quietly waiting for the work day to end it’s likely time to move on.
“The Guggenheim is like church to me.” This is something that was said, by myself to an HR person from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
I was tired, bedraggled, and had been on the road for two weeks straight. After spending a week in Oregon for a conference – followed by a short wine tour and weekend at Cannon Beach – my boyfriend and I traveled home to Los Angeles. The following morning we boarded another plane, this time bound for New York.
We were traveling east for several reasons – to attend a wedding in Connecticut, to drop by the Curators Conference in Manhattan, and to visit with family in South Hackensack, New Jersey (his). An interview was added to the mix.
It was slightly before this time I had submitted an application to the Guggenheim Museum, in one of the panicked weeks that followed after unceremoniously being laid off from my previous job.
I wore a black skirt and fuschia top with a wrinkled black blazer. I pretended that the wrinkles were deliberate. “Post-modern,” I thought.
I stuck my favorite black stilettos in my Olsen-sized handbag and quickly put them on in the elevator.
I summoned up a “game face,” absent all summer after the previous job at the aforementioned start up (in which time I had become completed jaded about anything “tech” or “disruptive” or “epic”).
I checked-in on Foursquare.
I promised myself to use fewer quotations.
I was tired of LA. I had changed and could no longer communicate clearly with a city that knew me nearly a decade ago when I was fresh from college, bright-eyed and willing to reason my way out of anything.
The game had somehow depreciated. It became unimportant and fake, a subset of surrealism only amusing when life threw a spade at the most unexpected of times. I was growing weary of the entertainment industry. It tied quite closely to one’s individual lifestyle which, don’t get me wrong, offered a tremendous amount of perks. With this, and in many areas of “living,” it also redefined the concept of friendship making the majority of players somewhat questionable.
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I fidgeted in the lobby, the offices of the beloved museum I visited with each trip to NYC. Like a doting grand daughter I was eager to learn of its history. My escapist tendencies often discovered heaven in that museum. Over the years, the foundation would also serve as a place of inspiration when the world would, just for a few hours, seem to slow down.
I came in preloaded with a few notes and lots of questions. The position interested me and I was eager to start considering a career change, a major pivot from the life I currently knew.
Maybe it was the exhaustion from traveling or perhaps it was the long summer removed from regularly paid labor. Either way, compared to previous interview experiences in which I spent time asking dull questions or inconspicuously thinking about other things like what to eat for dinner, this time I was completely myself. No sales talk, no pretending.
I walked out of there wanting the job. Very much. More than anything. I didn’t really consider that the opportunity was 2,806 miles away. Everything else – my sister, friends, and boyfriend – was back in SoCal.
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To provide some background, I moved to LA eight years and seven months ago. I was 23 and had just graduated with a Masters Degree from Emerson College. I studied Visual and Media Arts with a focus on New Media. I got to write cultural critiques like long-winded essays about the deconstructed story narratives on Arrested Development and at websites like frontline.com. I filmed short documentaries and built interactive art. I loved every moment of it. But it was after taking a course in music law and working at WERS that I convinced myself that I wanted to work in music. Working in the music industry kinda limits your options to either New York or LA.
I chose LA.
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It was the right choice at the right time. I knew Los Angeles would be fun in my 20’s. A classmate was offering to share a fancy apartment on Beverly Glen. And the college alumni connection, a.k.a. The Emerson Mafia, was strong. Not to mention that I had family in Southern California. (On my dad’s side. My sister would move out later.)
I fell into a crowd of Emerson alum who quickly became family by choice. Together we learned the ropes. We went to shows, festivals, and “networking events.” We ate ramen at 3 am and started themed DJ nights in ratty parts of town. We visited art openings, saw bands play in random places like the Hollywood Forever Cemetery or the basement of a Venice speakeasy. We had dinner parties and went to after parties. We fell in love with
Marty and Elayne, opening night at the ArcLight, Sunday hikes up Runyon Canyon and Pizzeria Mozza.
In Los Angeles your neighborhood becomes tightly sewn to the fabric of your actualized self. It’s your cultural DNA and home by which others can more easily understand you. Perhaps part of the problem was that I never created this for myself. I worked out in West Hollywood and brunched in Los Feliz, held a day job in Beverly Hills and went to happy hour in Venice. Even while dwelling in my favorite residence of all, a small bungalow in Santa Monica, I never really felt that I found a true neighborhood or tribe of my own.
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I tried. I did my best to embrace LA. The city was growing and changing – and I was too. I battled allergies and anemia, various neuroses and a cliched Hollywood eating disorder. I logged hour upon hour on the treadmill at Equinox and learned the San Vicente running trail so well I could run it in the dark. I assembled a rotating entourage of acupuncturist, trainer, hair stylist, and therapist.
I moved three times and went to Coachella five. I became familiar with the big party promoters and hotspots. I became fortunate enough to DJ at incredible venues and write for popular websites. I dated actors and musicians. I visited galleries and went to meet-ups. I fought tooth and nail for a radio show until finally landing one in early 2012.
In my mid-late 20’s I made many little victories and fell down a lot. I never really got “promoted” at work, always seeming to move diagonally like one of those desert-dwelling sidewinder snakes. I remained consistent in some ways, always working at the intersection of new media and the arts.
Falling into the music industry then the emerging social media scene, I came to know groups of talented writers, philanthropists, musicians, and entrepreneurs. Over time to some I became an outcast. In other ways I battled loss. I became destructive. I hid. I wrote. I became elusive and stopped accepting so many damn invites. I set boundaries.
At that point I was happy being boring and shy and hiding out at home to write or geek out on tech or assemble my little playlists. I was being self-protective during a time when I needed to heal, not learning until much later that security isn’t always the answer.
Tonight, on New Years Eve, I look back on these events like taking a hard look in the mirror at battle wounds healed over.
I’m proud of them. The thought occurs that maybe I should have gone out more. Or, maybe I should have stayed in more to work on my craft, whatever it may be. Then I quickly realize that everything, as it tends to, happened exactly the way it was meant to be.
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When I got the call with the job offer my eyes teared up. A switch flipped. “This is terrifying, which means I should do it…right? It’s time,” I thought. “Maybe I’ll hate New York and come back. At least I can say I gave it a shot.”
I don’t think we’ll ever be 100% ready for anything. So I’ve come to learn that if you’re presented an opportunity, you take it. Don’t ask questions. Just go. The world has a funny way of giving you what you need.
And so, I’m off. To explore, fall down, get battered and bruised and love and become completely immersed in life, all over again.