Contrary to popular opinion there are actual seasons in Los Angeles. They simply differ than other parts of the world where a stronger emphasis is placed by mother nature on the unique qualities of each quarter.
Rather, what California experiences weather-wise is often of biblical proportions – think fires, floods, and earthquakes. The duration of an individual season, as opposed to what one might see on a typical drugstore calendar, is much more temperate.
During the month of June a low fog perforates the surface of the west side. It blankets the beach towns in a fuzzy layer of gray dubbed the “June gloom.” Sometimes the marine layer burns off before noon, and on other occasions it remains in place for weeks at a time.
The fog leads to chilly summer evenings, prompting use of the often pervasive and ever-amusing “summer scarves.”
Living on the west coast, they say your blood thins out and one becomes sensitive to changes in temperature over time. The truth of this matter is up for debate and serves for good dinner party fodder alongside traffic grievances and opinions on the latest “field to table” restaurant.
Every couple of years LA would experience one of those hot and humid summers – the kind that sent everyone running to the beach or scrambling to find a new best friend with a pool to crash.
A late summer in a region with slight variations of maximum comfort gives way to those year-round beachy summers as seen on TV. Mostly, they’re talking about San Diego.
It was during one of those hot summer weekends that I’d head to the beach. I’d sit under an umbrella, read a magazine, sip a diet coke and feel the sand between my toes, enjoying the gentle breeze as I contemplated what to do with the rest of my day.
I remember this now as I trudge at a slow and steady pace up the stairs to catch the M train at the Marcy Avenue stop in Brooklyn, New York. I’m astonished to feel heavy drops of sweat begin to condensate on my upper lip. My thin shirt clings to my body as I cling to the “can-do” attitude that only a New Yorker can truly feel, the mixed feelings of relief and accomplishment and/or denial of the present Quality Of Life after trudging a mile in 90 degree heat with 20 percent humidity and a shit-ton of bags in tow. (grocery, laptop, gym.)
I pause to catch my breath at the top of the stairs. The crowd is the usual mixed bunch. Some commuters seem completely nonplussed by the heat while others are fervently fanning themselves with fans or newspapers. Some are in a neat little bouquet at the edge of the overpass clamoring for a few feet of shade. One exhibit of New York eclecticism shuffles about in a puffy overcoat.
After the train chugs up to the station the majority of us slosh in with relief, air-conditioning finally welcoming us with chilly arms. I wipe my brow and teeter from side to side as the train descends beneath Brooklyn into the outer rings of hell.
I look around. Tattoos and undergarments are exposed, flip flops worn with zero sign of any beach nearby. It’s a season when even fashionable New Yorkers reluctantly release their grip on style, and it becomes increasingly difficult to identify tourists from locals in the vast concrete jungle of tank tops and ray ban sunglasses.
The idea of “getting by” for anyone with even the slightest trace of worriment might appear to be rhetorical in this town, but the truth of the sentiment is real.
After being unemployed for six months in Los Angeles, I blew the remainder of any savings I had left to make the move to New York – and now the job I moved here to take was unexpectedly ending in less than two weeks. I hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do next.
My boyfriend joined me in New York two months ago and took it all in stride. He might have been more worried about our situation but didn’t show it if he did, even if his start-up was scheduled to run out of money around the same time my job was ending. One thing we knew is that we weren’t prepared to give up. We liked Manhattan, and loved living together in our new place in Brooklyn. Our own little version of LA Story had ended, and now it was time for New York.
Los Angeles was tough in its own way. There were many little fires and earthquakes, but it certainly wasn’t this dante’s inferno.
Out of the freezer, into the oven. If there were random photographs taken of people emerging from the subway, I’d imagine that the happiest-looking day would be on a Friday – perhaps on an early evening in the springtime, or right on the cusp of a holiday. The most miserable-looking days are likely following a long weekend, like the Tuesday after Labor Day, or today – one of these hot, sweaty mornings.
Out of the oven, into the freezer. I enter 345 Hudson, feeling my eyeballs immediately expand and pupils dilate as the sheen on my body quickly turns to frost.
It would be this way for most of the summer. In and out. In to meetings all sweating and crazy-like. Out of the building, shivering and anxious.
We grow and the flames rise higher. Real responsibility as our bodies begin to creak and moan, starting to reject the harsh surroundings of the world it wasn’t created to exist within.
I suddenly missed field-to-table dining and beachy weekends and summer scarves. I missed the easy-breezy West Coast lifestyle I had created for myself. But, like the weather, eventually something shifts.
I was undoubtedly being challenged but more importantly I was being prepared for the next season of my life, however extreme it might be.
“What’s going to happen here?,” I’d sit on the train among my bags and wonder. Sometimes we have to walk miles in the heat to find out.