The Vapor Baby in Los Angeles Grows

I’ve been in LA for 9 months. A baby could have been born from the point of conception. A baby was not born, but I have lived for some more. 

This is my first summer in California, and it is getting hot the way everyone has said it would. Since I have lived here LA has seen what people claim are unnaturally weird, cold and rainy months. It reminds me of when I moved to Boston and everyone warned me about the winters. They said I was in for it, that I’d struggle. I’d better be prepared. Then, I moved to Boston and everyone said these winters were mild. I didn’t move to Boston for a mild winter. Let me show them that months of 4pm sunsets and salted boots can’t get to me. If anything, it's exciting (a harsh winter came, and it did get to me some). But I kind of loved having to layer clothing intentionally, almost scientifically at times. I liked knowing that I could always check my coat, and I kind of liked that after a couple of drinks our skin could handle 20 degree chills from the train doors to bed. I slept deeply in the winter there. I said I didn’t mind the cold. I had some of my most vivid memories in the cold. My blood shrinks and I think a little less, but I remember more. 

In high school I ran around the woods of a civil war battlefield in Virginia until the middle of the night. This was his favorite place (that should have been a sign). But I was in love so I let his hand lead me. We bundled up and parked the car so we could walk for miles. It did not take long before my toes felt like stones that someone had dug up from frozen ground. I walked over icy creeks that I didn’t feel confident would hold me, and when they screamed at the top of their lungs I’d say I was nervous. I don’t like to scream. So I watched and wished. I would not let them know that my feet felt like they had irreversible damage. 5 hours north and I felt 7 degrees farenheit in the middle of the woods for the first time. 

I’d cry about family changes on the hill at my high school. It would be dark, my teeth chattering, 30 minutes til in-building curfew. He sat next to me, and I did not totally trust him. He said “you know I love you, right?” It was the first time I heard those words and it would take me a year to realize that didn’t mean everything. Just to be loved is not enough, but in that moment I didn’t know that. 

I moved to Los Angeles and declared this the year of mud and of screaming. On the highway I reach 82 miles and I scream at the top of my lungs. The first time I did it I giggled to myself. I thought of myself declining the offer to scream by a stone wall in Manassas, Virginia at 1am with two boys. That is an old version of myself. 

Boston confirmed good things happen in the cold, but it no longer feels as sacred. Good things happen in the cold, but bad things also happen in the cold. The heat was the same—I just had learned that young.

As it gets hotter here I realize 90 degrees in Los Angeles feels different than the 90 degrees that I am used to. I was born in a place where summer days leave you fatigued and sticky. You walk outside and you feel droplets of moisture race to your forearms and upper lip; who can get there and grow faster. I would get in my car after a shift at the cafe I worked at and I would take off my shirt and use it like an oven mitt on my steering wheel. It’s different, but 90 degrees everywhere is hot. So as it warms I may need to start leaving a t-shirt in my passenger seat.