Writing in Valencia: Part Five

This is a doozy of a post to write. I feel somewhat anxious even as I start to write it. I know that being scared when I write can be a great thing---I also know that writing scared is, uh, scary. And, as much as I would like to skip this post and move onto “Writing in Valencia:Part Six” I feel a moral obligation to write about writing in Valencia---as this is the name of the series.

Valencia. It is a bedroom community and I want to be in the living room, the salon or whatever room of the house that does not have so many Goddamn kids. And not only is it a bedroom community it is a bedroom with oak furniture that is new, highly conservative, and matchy-matchy. As most of you know I am not at all happy about being in Valencia. It was not my plan to be here. I was going to live my life as a suburban mother in Lake Bluff, Illinois. When that didn’t work I was going to do my best to create a reasonable life in Austin, Texas. That really didn’t work. And,then there was the ‘we are moving to Paris plan’ which did not work at all.

In Carolyn See’s chapter “Geography, Time and Space” she asks her readers to think about place as they contemplate their writing. “The places you know, long for, disdain the places that frame your life and make you what you are…Where would you rather be right now? Where would you like to never set foot again?”

That last question is so easy to answer. I never-ever-ever wanted to set foot in L.A. again. Never. Why? Well, the answers to that question are complex and varied and will be answered and explored in my Beverly Hills psychoanalyst’s office and then be transcribed to the page. My loathing of L.A. is too hot, manic and fervent to not be rich in psychic and creative material. I will mine it and once aware of what it is that makes me so hate my hometown I will be able to get the hell out of L.A. My fear, however, is that once I am able to understand my L.A. loathing I will be able to stay here forever and that scares me more than anything.

When my friend Danute came to visit me from Chicago she liked our condo and its central proximity until we left the relative comforts of our cocoon for a trip to downtown Valencia. When Danute saw Valencia she was a little, um, how do I say this in a way that I will not get me a nasty email from the mayor of Valencia, well she thought it was a little heavy on its retail focus and like me she was a little put off by the lack of anything old. Valencia is a place that is all new and shiny and, lacking in depth and history. I am a gal who prefers the later to the former. I want tangly roots, old buildings, cemeteries filled with people that lived long before me and a brick building or two.

She listened to me complain for thirty-minutes straight . She agreed with every complaint I had and then she said, “No,no. This is in fact the perfect place for you to write.” I was not happy with her ridiculous assertion. Perhaps my dear friend was jet lagged or I had not made a compelling enough case. I gave her a look that said, “What the hell are you talking about?” She responded to my non-verbal harangue, “What else would you do here but write? And, what better place for you to write than a place that inspires such antipathy?” Thanks, friend.

I wanted to fight my friend and tell her there was no reason we were here and that it was pointless and stupid and cruel. I wanted to tantrum. In moments my will to fight faded. I knew she was right. If I was in Paris and had an apartment overlooking the Seine I would not be sitting in front of my laptop for eight hours a day. I know myself and I know that I am not capable of that kind of discipline in the face of beauty.

Many years ago when I first began to write and wrote at 10-15 minute infrequent and intermittent spasms.I used to dream of going to Yaddo, MacDowell or Ragdale or any of the famous writing retreats. I felt sure that if I just had the right environment and the undisturbed time I could be a real writer. As it turns out, our little condo in Valencia is my own personal writing retreat. I have no distractions. I have no excuses to do anything but work. And, I do little all day but write. There are elements that my writing retreat lacks: I do not have a lovely cabin where people drop off two picnic baskets a day at my door and then tip toe off quiet as little mice so as not to disturb my creative process and then get to supper with creative people sharing their creative process over Cabernet and crimini mushroom risotto.

In Lake Bluff I went for walks. I went to work. I made lunch plans with friends. I drove over to Old Orchard and did a little shopping. Here, in Valencia, I write. I have eight to ten hours a day of time when I can work undisturbed and there are plenty of restaurants around me that deliver---and in the evenings He-weasel and I discuss the dance technique of the celebs on “Dancing with the stars” as we sip a lovely Port.

I do realize that it is unlikely I would have begun this series on writing if I was not here in Valencia and I am starting to become aware of other creative benefits of living in L.A. I will not disclose those today as I am a bit like a teenager who is having fun with her parents and slips a smile and then realizes what she has done. No, no more smiles. Must be careful to keep the mask of boredom, indifference and disgust firmly in place.

Carolyn, in her lovely book, suggests an exercise that she calls “terrific”, I on the other hand call it a psychic torment that in order to do I have to promise myself rewards, chocolate and naps. She suggests to “ Draw a map of where you live, your turf… Drawing where you are in the world is marvelously helpful in showing you where you are in the the world.” My resistance is enormous. All of a sudden I realize I have no paper and no pens and that I cannot draw and then I have a terrible sense of direction.

I think Carolyn is asking me to come out of denial and accept that I live here, that I live in Valencia, and to own my material. I know she is right. But, it hurts that my poorly drawn map will involve chain restaurants, chain stores and high-density master planned communities and not ancient bridges, cheese stores and lovely little cafes.

Flexible, if I don’t like that question, Carolyn asks me another, so,then, “ Where would you rather be right now?” I am filled with a blank expanse of uncertainly and options. The words that come to mind are the title of Mona Simpson’s book, “Anywhere but here.” As I have a mind that is wildly associative Mona’s title makes me think of a session I had many years ago with my Jungian analyst. I was complaining to him about the many unsatisfactory aspects of my childhood, again. I think he was a bit sick of hearing this and in attempt to change my story he made the extremely unhelpful suggestion that perhaps I ought to write out how I would have liked my life to have gone. I found his suggestion about as helpful as the time that he recommended I make puppets of my father and mother.

I think, even though the puppet idea was total crap, that my analyst may have been onto something and he may have been saying the same thing as Carolyn only in a obfuscated and overly intellectual way---as was his wont. If I am not going to write about my life in Valencia then I have to write about where it is I want to be. Only, this is the disturbing bit, there is no place that I want to go to that has as much energy and libido as my loathing of L.A. Because of that I get to write about my life in Valencia. Lucky me.

I am off to make the stupid map.

Photo of Valencia comes from here.