A Hostage of L.A.

We moved to Los Angeles from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in 1979 and I still haven’t adjusted to life here.

Oh, I have gotten used to the congested traffic. The freeways, except for when I’m downtown, don’t scare me anymore. I’ve learned that there are two seasons: rain and no rain. I don’t buy sweaters or a winter coat anymore.

And I figured out that Hellman’s mayonnaise in the East is the Best Food’s brand in the West.

All that was a piece of cake. It’s the isolation that gets to me and I don’t live alone. I’m lucky. I have a great husband and two terrific kids. But my husband goes off to work each day and my kids to school.

Get a job you say? Volunteer more of my time? No, then I would have to change my occupation. After all, I was a writer on the East Coast and I didn’t feel like this.

Yes, there’s something missing about life in L.A.

Around Christmas time I hum to myself a few lines from Joni Mitchell’s song “River”:

” It don’t snow here, it stays pretty green. I’m gonna make a lot of money, then I’m gonna quit this crazy scene. “

To me L.A. is a crazy scene because I can’t let my children have the run of the neighborhood like my sister’s kids in Maryland. It’s too dangerous even on the dead-end street we live on in Tarzana. It’s a crazy scene because I could walk out of my front door stark naked, stand in the driveway for 15 minutes and no one would notice me (not that I would want them to). But we can’t leave this crazy scene. My husband’s livelihood is here.

We who live in L.A. are holed up physically and spiritually in our offices, houses, apartments and of course, our cars.

Is it a sign of the times? No, because friends who are around my age, 36, say it was always like this here, even when they were kids.

Is there no sense of neighborhood except for the street gangs in South-Central L.A.?

Doesn’t anyone have spontaneous conversations with people they see on their street? And I’m not talking about the unfortunate homeless muttering to themselves.

Must set appointments be the only time we get together with friends?

Doesn’t anyone borrow a cup of sugar anymore?

MELANIE ROME

Tarzana