Emigres From ‘City of Angles’ Leave Behind a Lonely Pal

“Goodby,” said my friend Nancy in Seattle, as we were hanging up after one of our rare telephone conversations. “I miss you, and I love you very much.”

Nancy and I did miss each other. We had met at a party given by my writers’ group and hit it off instantly. We were close friends for a couple of years, and though I couldn’t argue with her decision to move from Los Angeles to raise her young son in the safer, healthier environment of Washington state, I never wanted her to leave.

As it turns out, in the two years since Nancy moved away, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to get used to the idea of bidding close friends adieu.

She was only the first in a growing line of chums and confidantes who have decided that the City of Angels--or “angles,” as one defector put it--is no longer quite so heavenly a place to live.

There was another Nancy, who forsook the glamour of a movie studio job for the slower pace of Richmond, Va.

Socia, with whom I sang in the Los Angeles Master Chorale and shared years of uplifting musical experiences, decided to spend her retirement in the Bay Area town of Menlo Park.

Robina, a figure skating junkie like me, took a job in San Francisco, where she had lived previously. Two more of my friends are planning to move, one to Australia to work on a scuba diving boat and one to Orange County, which may not be that far geographically but seems worlds away.

I have the leave-taking routine down pat: the long heartfelt confessions of why L.A. just doesn’t cut it any more; the countdown to D (Departure) Day; the doubts (“Am I making the right move?”), the search for the perfect going-away gift (stationery or a picture frame are always good); the farewell party; the tearful goodby. But no matter how many times I do say goodby, it doesn’t get any easier.

The media have published and broadcast numerous stories about the increasing exodus from Los Angeles--or from California entirely--and the new lives that the emigres found once the movers unpacked--lives that are (pick one or all or add your own): smog-free, crime-free, traffic-free, earthquake-free.

I have yet to read anything, though, about the effects the departures have on those they leave behind.

“Leave behind” may not be quite the right term. I’m not pining, wishing I, too, could have the grand adventure of uprooting my life for greener pastures. I enjoy living in this city in which I was born, grew up and forged a career, and I have no desire to leave it.

But it is unsettling when so many close friends--my support system, the ‘90s version of the extended family--decide to vacate my life on a more or less permanent basis.

I’ve had friends exit before, beginning in second grade when my best buddy, Kristin Dick, moved to Lake Tahoe and I never heard from her again. But those were sporadic departures, few and far between, not the steady stream of late.

I have discovered, too, that one of the benefits of being thirty-something is the richness of my friendships, something I don’t think I experienced as deeply in my 20s or earlier.

And at a time when studies have shown that even many married women like their best female friends better than their husbands, to be a single woman, as I am, with a rapidly depleting roster of nearby pals can make life rougher than I would like it to be.

Certain friends left particular voids. I had attended many local figure skating events with Robina and the Seattle Nancy; with Nancy, a professional photographer, I had the benefit not only of good company but of wonderful skating pictures.

Last summer, I realized with some dismay that I had almost no one of “the regulars” with whom to share the season’s ultimate rite, a Hollywood Bowl picnic and concert, because most of my musical friends were in Northern California.

Some months my phone bill has soared, depending on how strong my need to cry on someone’s long-distance shoulder or even just say hello. Sure, we’d promised to write, but the telephone is quicker.

I saw my Northern California friends in March when I went to the World Figure Skating Championships in Oakland, staying with Socia for a few days and attending the competitions with Robina.

So far, nothing seems to have changed in the degree of mutual liking, intimacy and respect by which I define friendship. I hope it never does, but I worry sometimes that it will, that the theory of out of sight, out of mind might eventually prove itself.

I know that change is a part of life, and I’m becoming a bit more gracious about accepting it. I have made some new friends. And I know it could be worse. My friends did not die, after all, nor have I lost their companionship because of a falling out. The friendships still exist, albeit in an altered state.

And having my close friends move away isn’t entirely negative. Before Nancy left for Seattle, I bought a great, barely worn $60 jacket for four bucks at her garage sale, along with some records I’ve since listened to many times over.

Even better, I’ll never have to pay for hotel rooms in Seattle, San Francisco, Richmond or Australia.