By Leah Christianson
The summer I moved to Oakland, everyone kept saying how unseasonable the warmth was, as if I couldn’t see the 18 shades of brown woven into the burnt mountains. I’d just left Minneapolis and kept longing for its pillowtop greens. When we landed in San Francisco, the plane got so close to the water that I was sure we would plunge in, even though I’d flown into the city countless times and knew we would not. I’d hoped for weather to match my mood, and I got it. Pale sun that played hide and seek; winds that quieted, then raged without warning; the promise of rain without any goddamn follow through. I came up with new rules—never leave the house without a jacket, stop at two drinks with anyone you don’t trust, take two sips of patience for every bite of self-loathing. I hung pictures of both my grandmothers in my room, remembering how badly I wished my dad’s mom could have met the man I’d just left. It wasn’t until the end that I knew even she would not have bent enough to accept him. We were still in love and that made it worse, because I kept tripping over everything that made us wonderful. Caramel recipes and smudged drawings and striped underwear. People recognized my sadness without agreeing to it, which was the kind of iron love I needed. Plenty of distractions, sure, but nostalgia was the only one sweet enough to change my blood. I refused to let heartbreak be the most beautiful thing in my life because I knew, eventually, I’d leave that behind too.
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I’ve driven through the desert enough times to know I’m meant to admire it from a distance. Reminds me of certain men that way. Luring me with promises—flowers blooming amongst thorns, unbelievable heat—but dusting over how hard it would be to build a life together. I prefer warmth but have the thick skin cold requires. Can hardly claim to be the only one divided, yet there’s something so delicious about pining for a life you purposefully set aside. Dunes rolling on forever make me want to scatter my life because there’s always another hill to climb and it’s difficult everywhere. Even if heading south on the 405 past the Getty still clicks all my filters rosy. Maybe because it’s easier to haunt a place than a body, but significantly less fun. Surrounded by golden sand, I dream of evergreen winter; in blinding snow, I shut my eyes to find cerulean sky. Los Angeles is a desert pretending to be a city is a desert pretending to be an oasis is a desert pretending to be a heart with as many neighborhoods as mine.
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And holy shit I miss that town in Southwest Ohio and its surrounding cornfields, punctuated by houses that sag into their smiles. Here I am, dreaming of dinners cooked on my dear friend’s back porch as the sun set into oceans we could no longer see, the smell of grilled meat seasoned with za’atar and garlic salt filling up the backyard. Cicadas and mosquitoes tried to buzz us inside but we refused because the air finally felt like a summer kiss instead of an anxiety blanket. We’d spent the whole day reading on a towel thin enough for grass to stab through, but we still weren’t ready to say goodnight to the sky’s grumbling. Sheet lightning rolled closer until we piled into a car to chase it. Then, gone. The next day, we heard that a tornado touched down in Dayton. We had finally stopped picturing oceans—she saw the Mediterranean; I, the Pacific—but it was almost time to return to them. The week before, we had driven to Louisville and sang karaoke until three in the morning, drunk on bourbon and genteel smoke. Our lives were smaller then. More knowable. We could gently cup our hands around them like fireflies, hold them up to each other’s faces and say: I worked hard to catch this, and now I’d like to show you. It doesn’t look like much right now. But wait until it lights up.
Leah Francesca Christianson is a writer and editor with roots in California and Minnesota. Her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, River Teeth, Split Lip Magazine, Bending Genres, Sundog Lit, and other publications. Leah currently teaches creative writing at The Loft Literary Center. You can find her online @lfchristianson or in person playing fetch with her cat. https://www.lfchristianson.com/