Leaving Los Angeles

Why I moved away from a city I love.

It’s early March, 2023 and it’s the last time I’m walking on my trail. The one I’ve walked multiple times a week for the last 7 years, the one that starts as a fire road at the end of a quiet, adorable street tucked in the hills.

I let my dog Spinelli off her leash. Beneath a canopy of towering eucalyptus trees, owl hoots punctuate the silence. As the trail rounds to the left, trees on the right give way to a grassy hillside, unveiling a stunning view of Los Angeles all the way to the ocean.

I turn around, and there it is: the house that for years has filled me with full-body longing.

A low-slung mid-century perched atop the hill, the stunning 3-bed/2-bath has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a tiered garden and what must be an even more magnificent version of this view. On my walks, I’d often peek through the high shrubbery hoping to catch a glimpse of the residents or their modern-art collection.

I’ve never seen anyone. But today there are people in the house and yard. Many people, actually. A party? No, they’re examining the home. It’s an open house. And although I’m sweaty and Spinelli is with me, I can’t pass up the chance to look inside.

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As a writer and illustrator, I had a charmed start in New York. I worked as an art director, got one book deal and then another, landed on a 30-under-30 list, and built an online following. But as a native Californian, I always knew my time there was temporary.

In 2016, I moved to warm and sunny Los Angeles to live with my friend Alice and to be closer to Jack, who I’d been seeing long-distance. The dreamy atmosphere suited my bordering-on-irrational idealism.

Hearing stories like pre-fame Jim Carrey writing his future self a $10 million check, I challenged myself to dream big, too. When I first walked the Mount Washington trail and saw The House, it seemed a fitting carrot to tie to my stick. I gave myself five years, opened a savings account, and tucked away every penny I could.

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The years went by fast. Jack and I moved in together, adopted a dog, and in 2019 got married.

In 2020, we started new jobs where we earned more, but our rent went up, too. As median home prices tipped toward a million, what I’d thought was an ordinary dream – owning a home – started to seem more and more extraordinary. And I became more and more obsessed with making it happen.

I surfed Zillow compulsively, acclimating again and again to rising home prices, pushing myself to dream ever bigger. It became clear that a million dollars wouldn’t be enough. I had to become a multimillionaire if I wanted the house, the yard, the kid, the lifetime of art-making in this magical city. I buzzed with a roiling feeling, thinking this is how it feels to rise to a formidable challenge. (It was anxiety.)

I made a vision board and wrote “I AM A MILLIONAIRE” in big letters above photos of beautiful houses cut from a magazine. I hung the collage on my wall to work its magic while I authored books, worked a day job as an art director, and sold prints in my online shop. There was no apparent end in sight, but I figured one would appear if I continued to work as hard as possible, for as long as possible.

I’m wasn’t alone. All the talented artists and writers around me were also chasing stability, a ticket to remain in the city for more than the length of a lease. As we entered our 30s and 40s, I saw friends at all levels of success suffer the costs of this overwork. One-by-one, creative comrades were waylaid by repetitive stress injuries, chronic anxiety and burnout.

Eventually my body followed suit. I got long COVID in 2021, which exacerbated back pain from 10 years of drawing professionally. I couldn’t draw for months and began to seriously question my dream. Somehow, my physical pain put me in touch with all the pain around me. I pick up on what I’ve been tuning out.

This city is in a severe housing crisis. Tens of thousands are without shelter. I am lucky to have a roof over my head, to dream of homeownership from the safety of my cozy apartment. If I told my younger self all I’ve achieved, she’d be over the moon. Why can’t I be?

Because the goalposts in LA are moving faster than I can chase them. In a tradition that feels very American, I’m collapsing on a treadmill of never-enough.

I reach out to friends who’ve left. The cartoonist couple who decamped to Kansas City. My poet friend who’s building her dream home in Detroit. The animator who now lives on a peaceful street in Nashville. They tell me they are happy.

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In late summer of 2022, Jack and I visit a Humboldt farm where that poet friend runs an artist retreat. I sit on an old wooden swing hanging from a plum tree in the overflowing garden, surrounded by birdsong and bugs and flowers. I look down into a verdant pasture where a few speckled horses are grazing. In what feels like the first quiet I’ve heard in years, it sinks in. The insanity of my yearning, the endlessness of it.

It occurs to me that I do not want to go back to Los Angeles. To the noise. The pollution. The $3500-a-month rent and the cloak of no-holds-barred ambition I no longer have the interest or energy to don.

Weaving through the redwoods as we head home, I tell Jack I am thinking about Ohio again. His hometown of Cincinnati, where we’ve discussed moving. A place where we have a kind and loving group of friends, and where a non-millionaire can buy a house. Jack is in favor.

Back in LA, I look in the mirror and try it out on my exhausted reflection: Ohio artist.

Telling our friends in Los Angeles is painful. Some scream “NOOO!” before they force themselves to become supportive. Others admit jealousy. We aren’t the only ones ground down by this expensive and endless churn. Others want to go out to pasture too, to find ease somewhere else.

Over a few tumultuous months, we pack up our entire lives, cushion our paintings between cardboard, give notice to our landlord, and say goodbye to pals.

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The sun is setting as I tie Spinelli to a post outside the entrance to the house. I sign the sheet presented to me by the listing agent, and make my way inside.

The house is crowded. A sense of high-stakes competition gives the zen-like space a desperate energy. The vast windows give a view of LA more spectacular than I had imagined. In the cramped kitchen, I recognize a celebrity dressed in immaculate white, taking photos on his iPhone.

In the living room, a stiff modular sofa is paired with a glass chess table. Wall-to-wall windows provide a panoramic view, admitting a glow that lights elegant bookshelves on the far wall. A small, uncomfortable-looking chair is tucked under a built-in desk.

I walk the rooms of the exquisite house, waiting for my heart to leap into my throat, for that old yearning to kick in, but it doesn’t. No part of me dreams of owning this house any more, or any $2 million house. Miraculously, I discover that I am no longer dying of this particular affliction.

In the small main bedroom, a couple takes in the view.

“It really wouldn’t need that much work,” the woman says, snapping pictures with her phone. It’s funny to hear people talk about actually living here. They might as well be discussing living in a museum.

I don’t linger. Jack is packing at home and needs my help. A glance at each room and I exit, collect Spinelli, and begin to walk back up the street. On the way, I strike up a conversation with a sharply dressed woman in a blazer and oval sunglasses. She’s a real estate agent who had been checking out the house for a client.

“The listing agent told me they’ve had 1,200 visitors – today,” she says.

She tells me she’s headed to Altadena next, to check out three other mid-centuries for the same client.

“Everyone is moving to Altadena now,” she says matter-of-factly, “because there are no homeless people there.”

In front of us, the celebrity is climbing into his Tesla.

Spinelli and I get into our car and head home. As darkness falls, the city is lighting up, horizontal glitter stretching straight to the San Gabriels. I roll the windows down and Spinelli pokes her head out to sniff the blossom-scented February air.

This place is heaven, I know. And I’m so glad to be leaving.