Southern California Seperation

They, we, are insulated from everything that makes Southern California great. Their house is sealed off from sunlight and warm breezes. Expensive windows are never opened to let in fresh air, even though it’s 70 degrees outside. Instead air is conditioned and temperature is stagnate. Window blinds are turned away from sunlight leaving us washed in artificial light, separating us from some of the few beauties of this area. And this separation is called luxury.

We drive down to the beach but our feet never hit the sand, never skim over the water. Instead my Dad’s newly modified pick up truck bangs through the most expensive beach house neighborhoods, trying to remain subtle in their hunger for wealth. Trying to blend in with the Mercedes and vintage Cadillacs. Trying to imagine one of these homes as their own and thinking that this the true mark of success, ocean front property. And one day they might have it. One day that lottery ticket is going to pay for itself or years of feeding slot machines is gonna kick back. One day they will be able to mock the rich from the inside. One day their house will have a gate.

I remember driving around with my Mom and pretending that we lived somewhere else. It was one of our favorite past times. We would drive through neighborhoods we knew we couldn’t afford and pull flyers out of plastic boxes precariously hung on splintered wooden posts. Sometimes we would go to open houses and pretend to be looking. I would pick out my bedroom and we would ask if there was a pool. We would dream up a new life for ourselves but all we ever came away with was a new coffee table that somebody had set on the curb.

There was something self destructive about those drives and eventually we stopped going. But thinking about it now, our dreams of advancement stopped when my mom married into the middle class. I guess that was far enough up the ladder for her. I guess she didn’t need the mansion now that she had the swimming pool and the two story house. But something about that life always felt foreign to me. After all I still count my money three times before I pay for something.

But my family out here is still dreaming. In fact their dreaming has turned into delusion. They drive a mustang and get two hundred dollar hair cuts. Almost all of their meals are cooked for them and they take Las Vegas vacations. But still they are unable to build a family. They are too self absorbed and self defacing. They hate their lives and all they ever taught me was how to hate it too.