When I go for runs down toward Ocean avenue in Santa Monica I always pass by this elementary schoolyard. I usually pause by it on my way back home when my legs start to hurt and grab some of the rosemary that grows wild and rampant along the side of the schoolyard fence. I love rosemary, the woody smell mixed with white wine reminds me of school-night chicken cooking while my sister practiced piano and I did my homework.
There are a few different kinds of rosemary, of course, but what I find in the schoolyard is the “blue lady” variety, with wee blue flowers and twisted stalks. When I lived in Jersey City, I used the Shoprite variety, which, coincidentally, tastes like Shoprite. But out here, it’s EVERYWHERE; one of the things I love about living here. So I just take it. And I don’t mean from people’s front yards, I’d NEVER do that. 
Sometimes the crossing guards on the corner give me weird looks. (Herb police–they don’t scare me none).
Recently when I was rosemary pirating, I stopped to watch the cute kids who were out on recess. One kid who looked about 10 was running away toward the fence by the rosemary. His friends yelled “what’s wrong with you?” and he yelled, matter of factly, ”Oh, I just miss my father”. It was a little sad but struck me mostly funny, how outward this boy was with his buddies about his innermost emotions, right away. Definitely not one of the cool kids, i thought.
It was a perfectly gorgeous late October day, and you could smell the ocean. No chance of rain or bitter cold to sting their noses as they played. I wondered how different I would have turned out if I’d been raised in sunny LA. And I got to thinking, if I end up raising my future kids out here, will I have anything in common with them?
I spent my free time as a kid hanging out outside the cvs, at the pizzeria, the malls, diners, or the movies. Kids out here have all that too, but they also have miles and miles of beaches to lay out on with their friends, tons of places to hike and camp without worry of bad weather, and malls that are outdoor, open air. They can go to the movies in movietown, in gorgeous, historical theatres like the El Capitan the Chinese Theatre. They can surf.
Would my kids appreciate the beach like I did, if they could go every day, like me and the mall? I remember the beach for me was the Jersey Shore; LBI & Wildwood. It was awesome to me. A summer treat, not an after school activity. But nobody surfed at the shore. They smoked cigarettes and drank beers and got ice cream when they heard the tinkly tune. There were no mountains on either side of you. Just hotels. You’d check, when you went for a walk, for your hotel in the distance to make sure you hadn’t gone too far from your parents’ red and white umbrella. The Sands, there it is. Tall and pink.
The first time I saw a palm tree I thought it was the coolest thing, especially the fat ones, like the outside of a pineapple with fireworks shooting out of it. Here people hardly notice them anymore. Will my kids notice them?
Most importantly, when I first realized I wanted to be an artist in junior high, I remember how I felt a bit like an outcast. One of the theatre kids. Different. My parents were concerned, my friends began to change, and as much as I felt like a weirdo for preferring poetry séances in my elementary school yard at night to house parties and drinking, I felt proud of my weirdness. I chopped off all my hair to look like Winona Ryder in Reality Bites and liked how it made me feel. When I got to NYU and was surrounded by tons of people just like me, I was relieved. (I know I’m making this sound like being a thespian was as tough as coming out of the closet, but it really was big for me, coming from such a traditional, italian family.)
If I had grown up in LA, no one would have cared when I said I wanted to be an actress. My friends’ parents would have helped hook me up with an agency. Most people here are artists, writers, directors, actors, musicians. I don’t think I would have had to go through what I went through, that ”weirdo” feeling, and that feeling of pride, that need to escape.
It’s more likely that my kids won’t become performers, and I kinda hope they don’t, so this point could be totally shtupt. And one could argue that when a kid realizes he wants to make music for a living he always feels the same way, regardless of his surroundings. But it’s just another thing that makes me realize how different things are out here. And I guess it would be up to me to remind them that they’re lucky to smell the ocean, to see mountains, to see a movie at a historical 1920’s hollywood theatre. And in reminding them, I’ll feel lucky too.
Not that I ever plan to bear children. That’s gross.
