all over the place

‘Where you going with that load of nothing in your hand?’

The Bangles, Going Down to Liverpool. From All Over the Place, 1984.

 

29th february 2020

It’s leap day. And I have a plan. What better way to spend the extra 24 hours than to go on a spontaneous solo day trip? I ponder as I stare out the window by my fake wooden desk in my drab USC apartment, foot tapping against the horribly scratchy carpet. Gradually, the almighty rumble of sounds hit me. I wince. I need to find a place where the drone of a thousand skateboard wheels trundling across the ground can’t haunt me. I long to be far away, somewhere natural, where I can finally see more lush green than concrete grey. Maybe a mystical forest—the kind where hippie kids camp out and trip on acid. But it’s not drugs I need—I need to get away so I can write down the troubling thoughts that plague my mind. It feels like an itch. And I’m dying to scratch it.

As a British junior at USC, I have an on-off relationship with the university. Our partnership becomes seriously impaired at times. My mundane daily routine consists of eat, sleep, work, cry, repeat. Getting stuck in it makes me miserable, as I have a constant and disappointing urge to be doing something far more exciting. The stress of the Village crosswalk alone, rampant with too many people I know and wish I didn’t, is honestly exhausting. Every time I am forced from Taper Hall to the traffic lights, trapped by gaggling crowds of freshmen, I often wonder if I will have any life left to live after I am finished with my degree.

As a result of all this serious overthinking and underdoing, I break down every couple of weeks. My form of therapy is to escape from campus and write so that I can return to forgive that fiery red-bricked look that USC gives me—the one that hurts my soul sometimes.

So here I am, persuading myself that I have nothing else to do and revealing my intentions to my cheery pyjama-clad friends, Amber-and-Ana. I call them that because they’re one hybrid person, inseparable since they became that awkward couple within my close-knit friendship group. I notice that yet again, they are holding hands, albeit a little more loosely than two weeks ago. Perhaps their invisible, love-infused superglue is finally wearing off.

I snap back to reality, reminding myself that my harsh thoughts against them are unfair. Their hearts are in exactly the right places.

“Please stay safe!” they warn me whilst I question why simple things don’t make me happy.

I pledge to them that I will, although it’s somewhat insincere due to the fact that my mind is elsewhere.

 

“‘Ear we go!” said the earwig as he fell over the cliff.”

My Dad, his old eyes shining, used to tell me that dumb but treasured joke all the time when I was small. He still whips it out from time to time.

 

With the same attitude as that joke, I arm myself with my journal, a pen, and a jacket in my teal-tinted backpack. I am weak, and natural selection is probably coming for me. I take one last nonchalant look at my bedroom, bed unmade and clothes shamefully scattered, before I lock the door and leave my apartment. I set off out of the Cowlings and Ilium building with a spring in my stride towards the USC/Vermont metro stop, Expo Line, in my quest to get as far away from the university as possible. Only I miss my train by 30 seconds. Cars whizz by, covering my swearing as I take a seat on the platform. This has delayed my little pilgrimage, but it’s not long before I’m on the next train headed towards Santa Monica.

Compared to the sootiness of the tube in London, it’s clean and pleasant in my carriage. The morning sunlight glints off the metal poles, creating a man-made northern lights display atop Spanish-language metro safety posters. As I gaze around, I find myself smiling awkwardly at the dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties sitting next to me. She smiles back, albeit with a touch of apprehension. If this were the tube, I’d have already been verbally abused for breaking the law of non-communication with strangers on public transportation. Luckily, my uncomfortable encounter remains peaceful. It’s amazing that more people don’t take the metro.

An early sense of release graces me as I slowly wind through the City of Angels like a serpent through the Garden of Evil. Every crossroads brings something different: two small children scootering on the side of the road, a shuffling man pushing his cart alongside my carriage. The streets here extend infinitely into the horizon. New York City might be a concrete jungle, but this is a concrete savannah. Many here are married to the golden state’s promise of a good life. As per Lana Del Rey, Los Angeles is the ‘Land of Gods and Monsters’, but how can you tell exactly who is who? There is something quite scary about what might lie behind the glaring white smiles of worshipped Hollywood giants, including that of Miss Del Rey herself. As we arrive at Westwood, I realise the proximity of the school that must remain unnamed. That, I think, is where hell is.

Upon reaching downtown Santa Monica, I can see from outside the window that it’s bustling; the sunny weather and sales attract shoppers like bees to nectar. A rather large man zips up his bag, which sounds like someone gasping for air, and pushes past me to get to the exit as we disembark the train.

I’m conscious that I’m overdressed for the day. I’m in my nice jeans and my one shirt that makes me look as if I’m not shaped like a blob, but I have my reasons. I always want to be prepared in case one of those movie things happen in which Ryan Gosling will suddenly drop out of the sky and I’ll get a load of fame and money.

I’ve arrived, but it’s a temporary stop. I’m not done travelling. This is far from the quiet sanctuary that my green-space-starved sanity craves. I may not have a specific destination in mind, but I do have an Uber gift card that I intend to spend. Nobody’s pockets will be hurting today. Of course, Uber has its stranger-danger risks, but I don’t have a car or a licence here. A shirtless man loudly arguing with his bottle-blonde girlfriend passes me as I find a spot on 382 Broadway to open the Uber app. The girlfriend’s bad lip filler jiggles like jelly as she talks.

“We’re literally not even going anywhere!” she retorts as she stops walking in the middle of the street.

“Neither am I, hun.” I reply in my head with amusement.

I find myself panning across the map on my screen. Somewhere high up in the Malibu mountains sounds quite appealing at this point, so I drop the pin and start my game of Uber roulette.

This is starting to feel like more of an adventure. At 20 years old, I must be getting middle-aged already.

 

“Life imitates art.”

Says Oscar Wilde and everyone else who has tried to do some stupid indie shit in their lives. Except they’re wrong; it doesn’t. But it’s too late to turn back now, and I can’t control the deep desire within me to live out this California fever dream. What am I doing?

 

I proceed to hop in my Uber and frankly hope that I don’t die. I’m suspicious of David, my bearded driver. I have trust issues with bearded men. What are they hiding? Once we hit the PCH, the trendy condos fade into a landscape in which the ocean is tantalisingly and torturously close. I am transfixed, but my admiration of the sun-swept, mirage-like coastline is quickly interrupted.

“How’s your day going?” asks David with an uncharacteristic smile I can see in the interior mirror. A distinctive accent and excess pouting of the lip. Ah, he’s not shady, he’s just French, I realise.

“It’s been pretty interesting so far.” I say. “Interesting”—the vague adjective that everyone uses when they don’t want to reveal what they’re really thinking.

We lightly muse over our day so far. Turns out, neither of us have been particularly busy. Surprisingly, our small talk deepens as we pass million-dollar ramshackle beach houses. David picks up on my Standard English accent, and asks me the dreaded question.

“So, what do you think of Brexit?”

“It’s a disaster.” I answer before launching into my rant about how it’s the worst decision ever made, second to the Queen killing Princess Diana. David laughs, and the imaginary tension between us softens as we both question how we got this far west. We are both continental drifters.

We turn inland, past the strange world of Pepperdine, and start climbing the mountains. Unfortunately, our conversation dies, so I am left in the company of my own thoughts. I try to think of an excuse for why David and myself came this far out of the city.

But so far, I have nothing.

It’s all a load of nothing.

There’s nothing here but scorched sands and mother nature as the scene around us gets more rustic. But that’s exactly why I like it.

 

Much Ado About Nothing

Some play that Shakespeare wrote. That’s how my day is turning out to be. And then I remember that “nothing” in Shakespeare is a euphemism for female genitals. And so I descend into femme insanity.

 

The ride continues, and I fall into the trap of looking at Instagram. I lurk for a minute too long, and, we’ve all done it—I stumble across someone who makes me want to scream across the hillside. I curse myself silently. I’m not skinny-curvy like Augusta, the stunning model whose page I’m staring at. I don’t have pretty blue eyes or long wavy hair. I don’t have great facial bone structure. In fact, my lack of bone structure makes my face look as if it has been filleted. I wish I could cut it with a knife to put some more bones in.

Then I remember, I’m not fully white. They don’t make beauty standards for mixed race people, specifically those who are both white and Asian. You have to fall within the standards of one or the other, and so I am left in no-man’s land. We’re either fetishized or sterilised. There’s no ‘Wasian’ category on Pornhub. That’s definitely not a bad thing, but when we say “fuck you” to those that run the porn industry, we mean it in more ways than one.

By the time I look up again, I am dwarfed by the looming brittle-bushed Santa Monica mountains around me. We pass through the darkness of the Malibu Canyon Road Tunnel. Higher we go, until we reach a sort of oasis at the top.

“Jesus Christ, where are we?” David probably thinks as we arrive. Instead, I get an “Enjoy the rest of your day” from him—charming, but not enough to conceal his obvious disgruntlement.

I get out of the car and thank him profusely before he drives away.

Now this is heaven. Birds chirping, the sweet smell of a rustling tree I cannot name. Wild hummingbirds, their buzz punctuated with the low beat of a butterfly’s wings. I walk around this leafy neighbourhood, amongst its wooden cabin-like houses. They’re large, but not looming. I quickly get lost among these endless, convoluted roads, but that’s okay, because they’re peaceful and keep my mind at ease. I look at my phone, but I don’t have service. I feel off the radar, and it’s brilliant.

 As per my mission, I seek out a writing spot. Eventually, I sit by the side of a quiet road, leaning against a slightly crooked road sign as I gather my supplies. Battle commences, and my hour-long writing war with my pen and paper begins as I try to work through my disjointed thoughts. Reflections upon the past few months’ worth of mediocrities, breakdowns, and heartfelt hopelessness all manifest onto my pages. To pull them together, I write:

 

“All roads lead to Rome.”

A medieval idiom said by many old folk about being lost in life. Sometimes in a religious context. But this is not Rome – LA is nothing of the sort. How on earth does an English girl with an immigrant mother and who only attended all-girls Christian schools end up first at USC, and now here?

 

I’m certainly not on a religious journey. My childhood was peppered with forced Catholic ceremonies. I hated it so much that at age 15, I developed a personal lifelong goal to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church. I’m still working on that. But I do believe in seeking things that are good for the spirit. Is that why I’m here? I once nearly crashed out of the sky in a little propeller plane somewhere over these very mountains. 12-year-old me was on my way from LAX to Mammoth Mountain on a school ski trip when the engines malfunctioned. Fortunately, we didn’t crash and nobody’s soul was left wandering these hills. Which means that I’m not in mourning and have no real reason to visit, although I still feel connected to this ethereal place. How did I randomly navigate back here? It must’ve been by impulse, but I can’t quite believe it. It feels like my gift and my curse, but I’m grateful for the experiences it has brought me.

I look up from my scribbling. A woman in gardening clothes, hair neatly tied back, empties her bins some distance in front of me. Should I talk to her? I decide against it. That would make me look fucking insane. And a good thing I made that decision too, because I then start to recognise her striking features. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, Vicki—the lead guitarist of 80s band The Bangles. Growing up with older than average parents, I was raised on the music of the 60s, 70s and 80s, and The Bangles were an essential part of our musical canon. Their song, Going Down to Liverpool, worms its way into my head. It’s a borrowed tune written by Englishwoman Kimberly Rew for her group, Katrina and the Waves. I realise that I, too, am an English transplant within the United States. I wonder if I, like Kimberly, have anything useful to lend to America. I add this thought to the day’s collection of confusing coincidences, but now I am nonetheless hoping that Vicki mistakes me for a shrub.

To try and make sense of it all, I write down the one word I can come up with and its simplest definition:

 

‘Pattern’

A repeated decorative design.

 

In a material sense, this definition refers to repeated structures featured on art and clothing. And then it dawns on me that my day has quite literally been tailor made. Everything that has happened in my life has led to me making each decision that brought me here. Choosing to go to boarding school, then coming to USC, and lastly weaving my way out here were all founded on patterns of seeking adventure. I decorate my life with escapism in order to find some sort of inner peace. My recurring urges to get away now make sense and I know why this mountainous haven feels like a part of me: the events and coincidences that I’ve noticed here are my strange way of tying the loose threads of my identity together. Finally, the chaos of my fractured everyday life has come to a halt, and for the first time in a long while, I feel healed.

I am the designer of this pattern. My being here is not so crazy after all. When I am over-nurtured, I need nature again. That’s just the way I am.

The breeze is now a little more chilly. I look around again, not worried about how I’m going to get home. My day’s work sits satisfyingly in my hands. And in that moment I realise that my crazy day of “nothing” has become “something.”

Harriet Taylor is a junior at USC pursuing a double major in English Literature and Narrative Studies with a minor in Screenwriting. She is from Buckinghamshire, England, and loves animals, Fleetwood Mac, and writing about the communities she encounters.