On the crowded plane coming back to Boston yesterday I finally watched the critically acclaimed “La-La Land.” The stereotypical Los Angeles palm trees and cloudless skies that made up the backdrop for Ryan Reynolds and Emma Stone’s performances made me reminisce about my own childhood in LA. It seemed as though I spent more time during the movie recalling my own experiences than watching the movie itself. I remembered the feeling of a full stomach after a picnic on the Griffith Observatory lawn, going to a small Rialto-like theatre to see my first “real” play, and falling face first on the freshly cut grass outside our family’s quaint suburban home just down the street from the Warner Brothers Lot. Each scene in the movie made me feel a connection to my LA roots.
But prior to watching the film while waiting for my plane at LAX, I felt somehow disconnected from the place where I spent the majority of my childhood as I watched locals board their planes. My family moved quite a bit around Southern California during grade school and I never felt quite connected to any place in particular. I became astute at watching situations and people in the new places I lived before inserting myself. I watched and waited to avoid being broken-hearted; forming connection too quickly and then having to leave those connections behind. In watching others I learned to take on their mannerisms and to fit in, morphing my own identity to mimic the culture and norms of where I lived.
I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if my family had stayed in the ritzy Santa Monica community where Reynolds and Stone danced on the pier. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if my family had stayed in the jobless actor ridden community of Burbank where the the jobless actors depicted in the movie lived. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if my family had stayed put.
There’s a part of me that is grateful for the experiences of moving and being aware of my changing surroundings. Yet another part of me is fearful of staying put and saddened by my inability to unapologetically be myself.
Who am I really? Do the places in which I lived make me who I am or does my true inner self define my identity?