L.A. has always had a certain freedom to it. It’s like this place where you don’t have to play by the rules. It’s kind of wild.

Words by Rachel Lynch
Photos by David Aronson

Perhaps it’s because I grew up in the snow, but I’ve never been fully comfortable around palm trees. They’re great and all, but every morning I wake up and see them outside my window in the Hollywood Hills, I’m confused. They’re the exact opposite of the concrete that makes up my Manhattan city block.

Despite this minor discomfort, I let go in L.A. I wake up early, only to do much of nothing, take day trips to the desert and stay out late in Silverlake, drinking tequila on a belly full of mexican food. Right now, it’s ten am, and I’ve already been up for three hours. My body’s probably still on New York time, but something about California makes waking up early ok. The sunshine and the warm weather are like a hug in the morning that I’m hesitant to embrace. New York makes me cold, hard, and untrusting.

But yet again, I let go, give in to the sun, and accept it’s warmth. Yesterday, we drove to the desert and just wandered. We took so many beautiful photographs, and as much as I had planned for this shoot back east, none of it really matters now. The anxiety faded, and whatever was going to happen, would happen. Sometimes, art has a way of creating itself.

“New York makes me cold, hard, and untrusting… But yet again, I let go, give in to the sun, and accept LA´s warmth.”

I have long fathomed a life in LA, but like I said, I’m strangely uncomfortable around palm trees and their suspicious nature. I also have a long history with LA. I’ve been traveling here 5-6 times a year since I was sixteen. My first two big loves were in LA. My very first boyfriend was a musician in Hollywood, we had our prom together at Universal Studios. And my second boyfriend was an actor, who walked around with a cane, just because.

I remember the first time I ever met him at a coffee bean on Hollywood Blvd. He sat down, leaned his cane against the wall, where he proceeded to take out a tin can of organic tobacco, and roll his own cigarette. I was completely in love, never before had I met such a character who could quote Kafka as much as myself.

But I’m getting off track. All I’m trying to say is that I find LA enchanting. A lot of New Yorkers say they hate the people in LA, but I have only ever fallen in love here. Even now as I sit outside at a coffee shop in West Hollywood, I’m in love. The perfect almond milk latte, and my pen to paper in the California sun. All I’m saying is LA gives me the strength to rise from anxiety and be creative and inspired. To revel in all it’s perceived discomforts. To embrace what comes your way with the unwavering certainty that you are enough.

LA, you’ve got my love.