Living in the SFV bubble
Strip malls, the 101, and pink donut boxes
There’s a terrible Zac Efron movie (oh which one you might be asking), called We Are Your Friends. It takes place in the one and only San Fernando Valley. If you don’t already know, the SFV is the true valley of California in the Greater Los Angeles Area and anyone with an 818 area code would say that. Some of our notable features include the clown liquor store, the porn industry, and strip malls. Seriously, if you aren’t walking distance to a strip mall, you must be deep in a rich neighborhood. All of these were highlighted in that hot mess of a film. But as silly as the film was, it put a smile on my face. This was my valley. This is where I grew up.
And I never left it.
Growing up, I never experienced all of what Los Angeles could offer
When people asked me in college where I was from, I would just say Los Angeles after a while instead of SFV. If they weren’t wowed by that, then they would ask specifics because in the end, only if you grew up or knew about the area then you would know more.
But it would bother me to some extent. I would feel bad. I almost felt like a fraud saying that I was an Angeleno.
Let’s face it: Los Angeles is huge. I most certainly would not have explored every etch of it with my family by the time I was 18, but I certainly did not see a whole lot of it.
For me, the map was as far as Pasadena to Marina Del Rey. Sundays we went to Inglewood. Motorcycle rides were to Malibu. But that would be it. Traveling past the Getty Center was far and few in-between errands after church or visiting a family friend. Car rides that I felt took forever were really going to Glendale or Topanga on the weekends.
I experienced the rest of the city through field trips
It makes sense now why teachers lobby for field trips outside of children’s neighborhoods because they might not have the opportunity to go.
I always loved field trips.
I loved getting the window seat, packing a special lunch (I would beg for sushi), and seeing where on earth we would go.
At the time I didn’t know I saw Alvin Ailey at UCLA. It felt like a different world.
Dodger Games on summer field trips, followed by Raging Waters or Hurricane Harbor.
Trips to the Science Museum
Parading through Downtown LA for a High School Project
Lunch at Exposition Park
Seeing the night sky for the first time in Sequoia
It started to occur to me then, while looking at the night sky over a decade ago, that not only had I not seen my own city but I barely ever left the county.
I remember the first time I was getting my sisterlocks retightened and we did not go after church. Because of that, we went local. We took the 101 South, got off at Vine and Hollywood, made a right, and then drove all the way down Vine, from Vine to Rossmore, then a right on Crenshaw, and then all the way down again. It felt like I was going through the city for the first time. And I thought,
“So this is all of what it is.”
It slowly grew from there, but I wasn’t alone
I experienced more of the city for the first time because of my friends. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have gone from Monrovia to Culver City. Or from Century City all the way to Big Sur. They gave me opportunities that I never had and still continue to do so.
The pandemic pushed me to go further and on my own. On my “drives to do something,” I would go out and support a local business and see more of my city. I never went on so many new freeways (for me) that I had in those months.
I always thought to myself after I graduated high school I’d never go back to LA. And while I don’t say that anymore, I think it was because I was in a bubble. My bubble wasn’t the worst of some, I turned out fine (I think), but when you come across someone from 1,000 miles away and go on about places they went to from a city you’re both from you start to wonder if you ever really lived there at all.
That’s when you realize how limited you really were.
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(Happy 818 Day!)
