smalltown L.A.

i had a wonderful dream last night that the place where i lived was different. instead of L.A. like it is, it was an L.A. that had a smalltown attitude. i lived in a small apartment in a row of tiny light blue houses surrounded by tall yellow grasses. my house had big windows that seemed to always face the sun, and the houses across the street had kids that would play in the street and we'd all play hide and seek. there were ice cream parlours within walking distance and i would go and get gelato and all the ice cream boys behind the counter knew my name and would give me an extra scoop for being such a good customer.

on weekends, all the kids i teach at school would come out and meet me in the cornfield, and we'd watch the big trucks driving by, carrying stacks of legos in their cargo beds, and we'd watch them drive toward the city and stack the bricks up. we watched them build a LegoLand amid towers of steel and glass. i would run back to my little blue apartment to grab my camera, and i never had to lock the door. and because all the apartments looked the same, i could never remember which one was mine, but my neighbors never minded that sometimes i walked into their living room. (tho one of my neighbors was a rich african-american woman, and she was a little cross with me when i made her late for a ritzy dinner part she was going to. my parents were also staying somewhere nearby and my dad told me they had to go b/c my mom was sick, she was really tired all the time).

before i woke up, my apartment grew into a two story house, it acquired a basement where my current roommate had moved out. but even that was ok, because i had someone coming home from overseas who would fill that space with me. i was walking thru tall grass, following my friend Kathee home from school, and we were making plans to drink tea and eat cookies before our midterm exams. the sun was shining and setting all the grass aglow, and Kathee's hair looked so pretty in the sunlight.

Miami was just a few blocks away. i grabbed my bag and a sweater and was walking on uneven sidewalk pavement, tickling my feet on the little grasses growing between the cracks, walking thru this landscape i had reimagined to fit my dreams.

longing for grass,
stephan!e