Back in 2017, I joined some friends for the Women’s March downtown. Sharing the moment with so many disparate souls who cared enough about a cause to show up (if only voting worked that way) was uplifting: the big city felt a bit like a village as hundreds of thousands of lives intersected near and around City Hall. Afterward I went up to a friend’s high-rise office near Bunker Hill, and I was struck by another wave of inspiration: Dodger Stadium was right there, Wilshire looked like a short drive to LACMA, the freeways seemed neat and orderly, and little gardens and pools around the tower’s base that I never saw from the ground we’re visible. The urban planning one doesn’t see in LA finally made sense.
Who hasn’t marveled from an airplane seat at our circuit-board carpet of city blocks stretching into forever, bordered by the Santa Monica mountains? The view from my old home wasn’t shabby, in this way. But being downtown, it helped me shake up the way I feel about L.A., revealing patterns I hadn’t seen before. With its unruly size, Los Angeles can seem like a mystery—easy to like but hard to know.
Putting Los Angeles together can be like a giant treasure hunt. Like magical little discoveries, all the individual threads in the endless tangle of this town make it less anonymous. She draws you in and reminds you that only in L.A. could a place like L.A. exist. Dots are connected, and you’re no longer merely someone living your own story, enjoying the weather and hating the traffic. You’re one of the Angels.