My Public Shame

I don't have much use for privacy. I spent my entire childhood in secrecy, hiding the horrible things my parents did to me, putting on such a good show that most of my high school classmates have no clue of the depths of depression from which I still haven't emerged.

For years, I hid myself. I hid my shame about everything. I hid my virginity, which I lost later than most. And then, when I was sexually assaulted my sophomore year in college, I chose to write about it in the campus newspaper. Not anonymously.

And an outpouring of support followed.

I've had my secrets since then. I've snuck around since then. But generally I feel better if everything is out in the open.

I feel horrible about where I've come from and what I've been through, but it's made me who I am today.

And, presumably, that's a good thing.

So why shouldn't I talk about it? Why shouldn't I reveal how I feel? Can't somebody out there relate to me?

Might I do some good if I let my voice lead the way?

Maybe I'm just desperate for the attention. Maybe I think there's no point in doing something - or dating someone - unless people know about it.

My first boyfriend took me on our first date accompanied by his best friend. I thought at first he didn't want to be alone with me, but I realized later he was kind of showing me off. That hasn't happened much since.

After him, when I got older, no one else ever seemed to want to admit any romantic interest in me, and if we ever did consummate, our affairs became a big secret - I became a big secret, to their girlfriends, wives, mothers and friends. All I've ever wanted is for someone to be proud of me, to be proud to be with me. And yet I've constantly been drawn into surreptitious skulking, sneaking around, and serendipitous run-ins.

It seems like no one has ever been able to love me with the lights on.

I am a public person. But not everyone is. That may mean I'll have to be publicly alone.

Though why someone can't be proud to be with me is beyond me.

I have been ashamed of plenty of things in my life, but I never thought I - me, as a person - was the thing to be ashamed of.

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Photo Essay: On Shaky Legs Down to the Grotto

"Are you OK? Do you want a snack?" one of my fellow hikers asked me once we'd gotten down inside the upper grotto at Circle X Ranch.

"Oh, no, I'm fine, I've got some food in my bag but I'm not very hungry," I said, wiping the sweat from my brow in the cool cave, which felt 20 degrees cooler than the ambient temperature outside.

"You should probably eat something," she said, explaining that our hike leader's girlfriend had noticed I was shaking a lot.

"Well yeah," I said, "But that was from fear."

I'd embarked on what had been designated a "beginner" hike with a group because it seemed difficult enough to navigate and intimidating enough to not want to do alone. I knew there would be some bouldering around the grotto, and some rock-hopping across streams to get to the grotto, which I'd rather do with a little help.

Though the rest of my group bemoaned the lack of running water in the dry stream, I was relieved that I wasn't going to slip again and fall - at least, not there.

I did not know I would be crawling vertically down a boulder, aided only by a stretchy rope tied to a tree. My inexperience in rockclimbing made my big hiking boot feel really unstable in the tiny footholds in the rocks, and I never knew where to put my hands. My body felt too heavy for me to hold up with my arms - even with a rope - and I kept worrying that I would fall onto my hike leader below and crush him, though softening my fall.



The hike to the grotto starts innocently enough, first through the lower parking lot and then down a driveway...



...which turns into a jeep trail past some wildflowers.



There are easy steps leading you down along this reverse hike...



...during which you lose elevation first and then have to climb back up at the end.



The aforementioned rope dangled from our hike leader's pack as we followed from behind.



I'd hoped it was just a precaution, not thinking we'd actually be using - no, relying on - it.



After a shady grove...



...with a few easy ups and downs...



...we emerged into a dry prairie, where sandstone formations loom in the distance.



Hiking through this former boy scout camp, you can see at once the natural splendor that was once home to Native Americans...



...as well as to the Spanish rancheros that settled and worked here (particularly because of the abundance of grasses and water).



Usually there's still a lot of water there, but after a dry winter with very little rainfall, and an early onset of wildfire season, we're lucky Circle X didn't catch fire with the rest of the Santa Monica Mountains in the recent Springs fire.



The grotto itself isn't actually that far, and very easy to hike downhill to...



...as the landscape changes and the ferns arise...



...and the rock outcroppings seem to indicate the end of the trail.



But no, you have to keep going.



You have to climb down and across.



You have to shimmy down a tree and get yourself down there.



Oh, shit.



For those of us lily-white city folk with soft knees and manicured nails, this is a challenge. And unlike our Cave of Munits hike where there was always some strong guy to grab my arm and yank me to where I needed to be, this time I had to get over my fears myself.

As I was struggling, I received lots of offers from the hikers above, and encouragement from the hikers below, to try to get me there. "I can do it," I declared. "Just gimme a minute."

They didn't realize it, but that was a huge accomplishment for me. Not long ago, I would've burst into tears and bawled, "I can't do it!" But I knew I could do it. I just needed to take my time to figure it out.



I was the first one into the upper grotto cave, feeling proud of myself...



...until the others arrived, concerned for my well-being.



I had embraced my fear of heights and falling.



Now I just had to worry about the boulder that had fallen on top of this waterfall 8000 years ago to form a cave. Would it move again? Geology is now.



We hung out there for a while, dipping our fingers into the water and eating our snacks, but our hike was not over. We still had to climb down to the lower grotto, whose waterfall is fed by the upper grotto.



The lower grotto is more of an open-air formation, the sun reflecting off the water onto the rocks...



...but you wouldn't want to go swimming in there.



At least, not now. It's pretty green and slimy. And full of tadpole-eating water snakes, and at least one salamander.



It's another other-worldly landscape.



I suppose when the water is really raging in a wet season, the Grotto is kind of an exciting place to visit. But when the water is down to just a trickle, it was calm and cool, a welcome respite from the hot day, and from the terror I felt getting there.



Even the lizards are willing to pose for a photo.



But all the way down there, at the bottom of the lower grotto, I couldn't help thinking, "We've got to get all the way back up there - the same way we came."

And we did.

And I survived.

But not without a little shaking from fear.

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Dispatches from My Soft, Naked Core

Maybe I've grown old.

Maybe I've grown up.

Maybe I've lived alone for too long, I've forgotten my former liberal sexual politics.

Maybe California has changed me.

Maybe I've finally developed some long-sought sense of self respect.

But now the casual, soulless world of dating just makes me sad. Like, really sad.

It used to be that being alone made me sad. Being rejected made me sad.

Now being pursued makes me sad. And knowing the ins and outs of those pursuits, which are most certainly used on others, perhaps more unsuspecting than me, has burst my bubble so badly, I've given up nearly all hope of romance in this world.

I have a high school friend I haven't seen in years who has used Facebook to compliment me, at first out of admiration, then out of some long distance sexual pursuit. I am a lonely woman, so I admit that I encouraged him at first, despite his marital status, assuming he was lonely too, in a loveless marriage, and was trying to connect with something familiar and safe. When he admitted that he and his wife did love each other, and were continuing the marital act of lovemaking (despite not always actually sleeping in the same bed), I turned cold. It didn't matter how smart or talented or interesting he thought I was. I no longer felt complimented by his lecherous comments on my photos.

I have an LA friend I don't know very well, who has pursued me on and off since we met in October, usually in between dating some other girl. We've gone out a couple of times, so it seemed OK to accept an offer for a sexless sleepover. (After all, I am more often turned down for sex than pursued for it in LA, so it would probably be safe enough.) Upon peeling back my layers of clothing and revealing my soft, naked core, he delighted in everything I saw as physical flaws, and exuberantly pointed them out. When I complained, wanting to bury myself in a winter coat and never come out again, he protested, "No, I like it!" But someone telling you how much they like your love handles or your unshaven legs or your big nose or your ears that stick out - and, for my own protection, those were not the things that he pointed out - only makes you more self-conscious about those areas. I guess we women don't want guys to even notice that we haven't waxed our eyebrows in over two years, not for them to exclaim, "No I love how messy they are!"

Besides, why was this guy so hyper-focused on my body parts anyway? Why are all guys across the board obsessed with nipples and do everything in their power to catch a glimpse of one?

Both those situations made me feel horrible. And those were guys who know me, who profess to like me.

In New York, I never knew it back then, but I now marvel at strangers' ability to pretend, quite convincingly, for the span of time that they're with you, that they are so into you. You are soulmates. You are the most gorgeous woman they've ever met. You are hilarious. They can't spend the night without you. (And then, of course, you never hear from them again, and if you do see them again, they don't remember you, or pretend not to.) In LA, a harsh reality sets in before anyone is even naked, when guys say things like, "I don't know if I like you. I don't know you." And for some reason, you still take your clothes off.

I'm not sure if it matters if they like me or not, because even when they do like me (see above), it doesn't feel so good.

I don't know what I expect - what I ever expected - but it's not that. It's not this.

It's not meeting a bartender who's also new in town, bonding over moving from New York, and then getting booty-called by him at the end of his shift, punctuated by a text message that reads, "Wanna bang?" the next morning.

It's not him telling me, after I've gracefully declined his kind offer, that he wishes I wasn't all "cracked out", or he'd give me his big you-know-what, and do you-know-what to me.

That doesn't make me laugh. At this point in my life, that feels like a threat. I don't know where in the world that behavior is considered acceptable, but not in mine. I don't know what girl would have gone for an approach like that, but not this girl.

I went on a blind date fix-up the other night, and when I finally arrived to the bar late, the guy sitting next to my date got up to leave. Clearly he was lit, and apparently had been drinking for hours already. He bowed out of the conversation, gave up his barstool, and declared, "Don't worry, I'm clearly not driving home. I'm going to go hit up my Top 5."

I was stunned. "I knew that happened," I told my date, "but I've never heard it actually said out loud by a real person."

My date wasn't sure what I was talking about, so I clarified, "He's going to go try the top five girls he can booty call."

"Oh," my date said. "I had no idea."

And then I wondered why I knew that and he didn't.

And what that said about me as a dater.

And whose Top 5 I had been in.

And for whom I'd only been #5. (Somehow that feels worse than being off the list altogether.)

I am a competitive person. I don't like to play games I can't win. When I won a game show, I didn't answer a question unless I was absolutely sure I would get the answer right.

I kind of don't want to do this anymore unless I can be #1. And not just on the booty call list. I don't want to be #1 Nipples or #1 Ass or #1 Orgasm.

I just want to be important. And valued. And the only one. At least for a while.

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Downtown LA's Upwards Build into the Open Air

One of my biggest complaints with New York right before I left (and now, whenever I go back) was the claustrophobia I felt, both underground on crowded subway trains, and above ground on tourist- and stroller-infested sidewalks, under the ever-present shadow cast by the looming buildings that you were never supposed to look up at.

There are many days I never saw the sun, even during daylight.

So I escaped from the vertical build of New York City to the horizontal, suburban sprawl of Los Angeles.

For all of the wide open spaces of LA's ranches and canyons and flat freeways, people sometimes forget that LA is more than Hollywood Boulevard and Route 66 and beaches and the Sunset Strip. For a long time, LA's center city was Downtown, an area of town where density once ruled.

LA's Downtown, however, wasn't like other cities' downtowns. And it still isn't.

For decades, a city ordinance prevented developers from building higher than 12 stories, in order to preserve the city's open air landscape. Even when a workaround was figured out for City Hall - and that municipal building towered above all others - for years, no one could build anything higher than City Hall.

But in the mid-20th century, when urban renewal became a thing and the once-affluent Bunker Hill, with its once-spectacular Victorian houses, became a blight overlooking old Downtown, LA city planners had an idea: demolish (or move) all the ramshackle houses that had become an eyesore and cost the city more money to maintain than the city made in tax revenue, flatten the hill, and build a "New Downtown."

This New Downtown would be tall. And this New Downtown would be spacious, not crowded like Broadway and Spring Street, full of pandhandlers. The new, modern skyline would rise high above the streets and the cars below, but yet still allow you to see the sky.



Each skyscraper was planned with its own public space - gardens, plazas, and, in the case of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power building, a moat - that would create a fortress-like isolation for the new buildings.



They would be self-contained and self-sufficient...



...leaving the incandescent lights on to warm up on chilly nights...



...and firing up the water features to cool down when it's hot.



At night, the city sparkles like any metropolis might...



...but you can be right in the middle of it, and still gaze at it from afar.

In aggregate, depending on where you're standing (like beneath the Central Library, or on the Oviatt Penthouse roof deck), the structures that comprise the New Downtown create a crowded skyline.

But individually, each on their own, they tower in solitude.

And walking or driving beneath them, I don't feel claustrophobic anymore. I can relate to them. I need my space, too.

Related Post:
Looking Up from the Streets of Downtown LA
Wide Open Spaces
Up and Down Bunker Hill on Angels Flight

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Photo Essay: Abandoned Naval Housing, Western Avenue

We drive by so much in LA.

I like to walk by and have a look.

I like to park my car, get out and have a look.

Among the attractions that often pass us by as we're tuning our radios, flicking our blinkers, wiping our windshields and shifting our gears are the places that used to be something.

There's not much - or, perhaps, nothing - there now, but - once - something was there.

(This is the same thing I say on many hikes when I encounter some footing or foundation or some stairs to nowhere - "That used to be something.")

Case in point: wedged between a cemetery and an oil refinery along California State Route 213 near the border of Rancho Palos Verdes and San Pedro is a stretch of abandoned sidewalk, beyond which is fenced off. Not much there.

But when you take a closer look...



You come across some secret governmental property...



...with a road that has long since been closed...



...and an unmanned security kiosk.



No one's really around. But it feels like they're watching.



A peek beyond the chainlink fence reveals old naval housing, shrinking into the dusty hillside...



...looking like dollhouses with their still-green bushes and still-standing wooden fences.



Boarded up, they're clearly abandoned, but not in shambles - at least, from the outside.



But you can't get in there.



The fence is patched up, covering any access points that were once made, by deterioration or by force.



Electrical wires dangle...



...trees, shrubs and aloe plants overgrow.



But despite the cracked pavement and the desolation...



...it is not entirely abandoned. The entire parcel is now privately owned.



And they're keeping us out, because they have big plans for it.



I mean, like Surfridge, there's a whole town in there. At 62.5 acres, it's huge.



Developers would like to turn it into a housing project called Ponte Vista...


...which was first proposed at 2300 units in 2005...



...and has since been downsized (a couple of times) to a sprawling suburban gated community of 830 homes.



There has been a huge community uproar over the proposal...



...despite the fact that it is just sitting there, inaccessible to the public...



...right behind a local high school.



Fences beckon climbing.



Barbed wire invites tetanus.



And the biggest community concern over the development proposals?



The traffic.

Related Post:
Photo Essay: Trespassing Through Southland's Military History

Other Reading:
LA City Planning Ponte Vista Historic Resource Report

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