California Dreaming

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I am weary beyond belief. How did I get to this point? Really, I have no idea. One moment I was full of ambition and inspiration, next, dead as. Not physically dead as, but emotionally and mentally shot to pieces. Still am. Although … well, I'm here now so I might as well make the best of it.

I hadn't wanted to come to California Not now, not at this stage of my life. For years, it was all I dreamed of doing. I was certain that I'd find my type of people here. Yeh, I know California has a reputation for airheaded shallowness but even in the City of Angels, so friends tell me, there were pockets of people whose ideas and work exactly matched mine. Besides, California is more than Los Angeles. There's San Francisco and San Diego. There's Carmel, Big Sur and Palm Springs. There's Napa Valley. There's Death Valley. I think I will have to visit Death Valley.

Then I won this stupid competition. Six months in California to write a novel. I have no idea what I am going to write. This place does not inspire me. Rather it whispers to me of broken dreams and lost illusions. It's almost as if I've been asked to turn the clock back thirty years, and be that bright-eyed actress, full of hope but terrified she wasn't pretty enough. Which she wasn't. She had looks she needed to grow into, and is still pretty much doing just that.

Anyway, I don't want to be that young woman again. God knows, I've walked the path with her for long enough, and we parted on good company. No going back now. Yet I'm struggling to go forward. I miss my cat, and wish he were here. I hope he is okay with being boarded for six months, (Who am I kidding? I know he isn't, and I feel as guilty as hell.)

Perhaps, if I just start writing something will click, the muse will say “Hello stranger” and the words will flow like a river. At the very least, I may not miss my cat so much. And I may get over this soul-sucking jet lag. I can't seem to adjust to the new time zone and have been awake much of the night, tossing and turning, angry and lonely.

I pull back the curtain of my hotel window. The sun is rising, a sliver of light palely illuminating the eastern sky. Today I must decide where I will start my writing journey. I'm already sure it won't be here in L.A. Somewhere else is calling me, but I can't quite hear what it is saying.

Good morning, California. It's nice to know you.

Inspired by a prompt from Cynthia Morris in her quarterly Free Write Fling.