Just returned home from a mercurial 4 day trip to Los Angeles....

Just returned home from a mercurial 4 day trip to Los Angeles. Having spent 20+ years there, between the ages of 24-44, I consider it my second home. I hadn’t been back since late fall of 2010. 

I remember when I moved from Illinois to Southern California back in 1986. It was the greatest adventure of my life. It was overwhelming at first, but I quickly grew to love LA. It felt like I’d found my place in this world.

Visiting this time around, though the overall trip was a tetter totter, the feeling of belonging was there the moment I stepped outside LAX. For such a noisy, smoggy, crowded place, I love it unconditionally. My last three books are all set in LA, both present and future. It still fills full of adventure and wonder, and I always feel like I can be 100% myself there. At times I struggle with myself here in the Midwest. Every day a part of me wants to return to live out the rest of my life somewhere in the cit of angels, but every day the dds of me returning grow smaller and smaller, which has planted a seed of sadness in me that takes the giddy edge off of any great news I’m fortunate enough to receive. Minor daily irritants plague me much more here in West Central Illinois. Even with the new wonderful granddaughter, I exist here more than I live. Every day it feels like I’m fighting to create a comfortable life from sticks and stones because my creative skill set doesn’t fit in as well in my current surroundings as well as it does LA. I’m out of place and know it. A triangle can fit into the space of a square, but not fully fill it. That’s how I feel.

Its a great gift having two homes you can be comfortable in. I just happen to be living in the wrong one.

For now. And maybe forever.