ONE

    In Hollywood I find no beauty.

    Smog casts the sky lavender. I shudder at the glimmer of street lights seen at night from Griffith Park - twinkling, gorged with exhaust. Tinged a dishwater hue, a stain that lines the horizon like crust. I seek out loveliness and fail, disappointed by my own expectations, neck aching from too much upward-gazing, trying to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood sign. Pausing at the crosswalk of Sunset and La Brea, I disappear by increments, overwhelmed by the heat curdling from car engines and the rancid smell of sludge that has accumulated in the gutter, clogged with grime and gum wrappers. Buses lumbering by, perilous on their wheels. I fear the buses will snarl, leap forward to topple and crush me, fracture my bones, grind me into the background. A dark, wet stain on the street. I am always laughing and smiling, acting like nothing is wrong, extending my own discomfort by extracting beauty from the commonplace.

    Attempting to avoid the lurking shadows of tall buildings, I pirouette over cracks in the sidewalk, glancing behind me nervously, searching the skyline for silhouettes of hulking palm trees, utterly narrow and bleak, standing sentinel to the Walk of Fame. The trees loom and threaten like terrible creatures from a nightmare; strangling branches, choking vines, rats tumbling headfirst from their bowers to scurry through the crowds of tourists with their tails whipping behind them.

    When I was a child I imagined my dolls stood up at night and waltzed around the nursery, bowing and curtsying to one another, offering a hand splitting stuffing for a kiss. My life is divided into before and after. Palm trees lift up their roots and creep throughout the city, wrenching and twisting the pavement with muscles of granite, then rearranging the grid, backwards and out of order. I’m always getting lost, never able to find my way straight to the sea. Ranks of palm trees marching through the alleyway, when I am not looking, when I am neither here nor there.

    If something is out of place, I am immediately on guard, wary of mischief, unable to translate these reversals of structure. A coat with too many pockets, performative gestures, a raffia orchid pot worn as a hat. These repeated signals that something is amiss. Finesse, expressive hands, a smile that does not extend to the eyes. Refusal to be named. The frustration I feel encountering these symbols, disorder creeping in, infecting me with this intolerable uncertainty.

    Every morning I turn back my curtains and glare up at the silver thimble of sky visible above rooftops and soot-coated trees. Celestially clear, the sun dissolving the clouds like pats of butter, pulled apart like cotton candy. I watch old movies about elegant women living in New York high-rises, envying their elbow-length doeskin gloves and ankle-grazing mink coats; their knack for rising in the foreground of the metropolis, charming its authority with a tube of red lipstick, their glamour a defense against loneliness, heartbreak and doubt. I couldn't bother with a coat of lipstick. I try to stay inside, in sheer slips, only venturing downstairs in my robe to check the mail.