I've fallen in love

I am told that when I was a little girl I used to eat oranges. And I have no clue if this blur of a memory is something my eccentric mind has simply conjured, yet I somehow recall sitting on the steps in my parents’ home in Maryland when I was a wee one and munching on a bowl full of orange slices. True? Not sure.

I also know—for a fact—that I had a bit of an obsession with frozen pizza. Cheese only, usually. Sometimes pepperoni. I liked the clean look of a frozen pizza, the dependable crunch with every bite; the perfection the circular shape offered. I would duck away from bites of fresh pizza and wonder why we weren’t eating “the good kind.”

Fast forward many moons and I’m sitting on a couch in Brentwood and my friend invites me to have an orange slice. I start to shake my head and then think, “Why not?” No need to wonder if I enjoyed that slice of Orange Heaven: fast forward a day later and I come home from the market with a bag full of oranges, prepared to indulge in my latest food love. One of such simplicity, such amateur nature.

I have no such defining moment with pizza but now pizza is something that I prepare homemade every few weeks.

Los Angeles, in some ways, is oranges and fresh pizza.

Let me explain. Flash back to about four or five years ago, I’m losing count, to when my ex-boyfriend invited me to come visit him in Los Angeles. This was, of course, before he was my ex-boyfriend and before he was my boyfriend. I had no idea, no image, no dream, of what Los Angeles might mean. I had no visual aid in my head to imagine. City? Yes, a city. But not like New York. Beach? Yes, but when I thought of beach, I envisioned Maryland and its charming boardwalks and diners and wild horses.

My mind was a blank slate when it came to Los Angeles.

The first year I came out here, doing long distance with my boyfriend, I kept an open mind but I didn’t fall in love instantly. Los Angeles had to romance me first. I was confused by the curving of the roads, the vastness of the city, the many choices of neighborhoods. I kept trying to place Los Angeles in a category of sorts. Charming? Formal? Laid back? Beach town or city? Dirty or clean? Superficial? Los Angeles refused to be categorized.

Eventually, I knew I would be happy here and so I moved. I figured it was a good three-to-five year plan for me. I figured it was good for my career. An urban experience but still a cheap one-hour flight back to Arizona suburbia and home sweet home.

But something has happened to me since moving to Brentwood about a year and half ago. I’ve fallen in love with Los Angeles. I never thought I’d be a California girl but now I can’t imagine it any other way. I feel as though I’ve opened up a box and discovered the sweetest of surprises. My walks around the Brentwood country club, the hiking in the canyons. The foodie nature of Angelinos with all of the restaurants and wine tastings and farmers markets. Jogging alongside the ocean. Peet’s Coffee & Tea (the best!). The boutiques you can’t find anywhere else. The birch trees that line Sunset Boulevard as you drive west. Sitting in meetings at work and seeing the ocean on a clear day. The appreciation for the arts.

Now this has me wondering what else I will fall in love with in five years. I was sitting at my kitchen table last night talking to my Mom…

“Just got my latest Netfix movie. It’s so much fun to just open up your mailbox and find a MOVIE!” I said.

“Joanna, I never thought the day would come when you got so excited over a movie rental,” she commented.

Movie rentals. Oranges. Pizza. Los Angeles.

I guess you never know.