Daydreaming
My daughter and I headed out early this morning, a day packed with activities ahead of us. I took my usual place behind the wheel, admittedly somewhat frazzled due to all the preparations I had undertaken at a rather early hour.
Los Angeles can often work wonders in a situation such as this. We passed under the bridge that anyone who has done the drive on the I10 to the PCH northbound will know. A dream landscape of mist dressed in cool greys enveloped us as we emerged; the ocean floated past, adorned with gaggles of bobbing surfers. Happiness chased away the early morning concerns and we flew towards our turn off to Topanga.
It’s been a while since I’ve been out to this side of the city. We drove up through the canyon and followed the signs for Red Rock Canyon Park, our first stop of the day. As the road became less of a road and more of a rough track we drove past houses where you still might be able to live an existence apart from our crazy digital modernity. I indulged in brief daydreams of becoming one of those creatures who time forgot. I got talking later to a lovely lady who told me of someone she’d known in Topanga who’d kept his gold hidden under the floorboards and was virulently anti-government. It’s just that kind of place, man.
We spent a magical couple of hours at the birthday party of one of my daughter’s close friends. They’ve played together since they were two; hard to believe that they’re both now proud six year olds. Her parents had created an event that the children who attended will remember; probably forever. Under the shady canopy of the trees, two large hammocks were strung up across a small ravine. There were Easter crafts, a scavenger hunt and then a hike and a treasure hunt to boot. We older creatures stood and chatted while the children did what children do best. One conversation I had flowed around and through the landscape of home education, a phenomenon which has enriched my life this year in ways I couldn’t have imagined until recently. If more of us continue to think and do for ourselves after these past days of darkness then perhaps we can keep the sun shining in our corner of dreamtown a while longer.
We floated back down the canyon and, in one of those dream sequence sleights of hand, found ourselves driving down Wilshire Boulevard into Beverly Hills. My son chuckles at my ability to see Manhattan in virtually any ‘skyscraper’ I encounter. The buildings on mid Wilshire proved no exception to my double sight today; for just a moment I could have been somewhere quite different.
The more time I spend in Beverly Hills the more I’m growing comfortable with the place. One more notch in the belt of stringing together the pieces of this elusive city. Since September we’ve been coming here several times a week to the French Conservatory of Music, a place so wonderful it deserves a post all of its own. A hour or so later, refreshed by our encounter with true holders of culture, we crept across the city and down the freeway. We drove under a sky now blue with a richness that’s hard to describe, except to say that if a blue sky can be life giving then that is exactly how it felt to me this afternoon. I merely had to gaze upwards to be renewed from within. My daughter snoozed before disembarking from our voyaging vehicle in Inglewood. The last appointment of the day was with her gymnastics team before she competes in her first ever in person competition tomorrow.
I found myself finally back in the comfortable embrace of home, the sofa and our American Bully Duke. I reflected on the movements of one of those wonderful days whose essence was already dissolving into the shimmering shadows of memory. Any day where I’m dreaming in the city of dreams is a day whose echoes I’ll hear long into the twilight and beyond.
