Cruising the river

It's a lazy Friday in July so why not post a little travel writing, even if it is about home. Notes from the Road calls itself "a project in experimental travel writing - it is about subjective travel; the kind of real world of random things and real people. Notes from the Road looks at a handful of connected regions from the perspective of the outsider looking in. By road, by kayak, by seaplane and most of all on foot, I attempt to tackle the themes of city and country in the modern world." The writer is Erik Gauger, who said he once was the poorest man on Broad Beach. He posts about paddling the Los Angeles River, which he calls the Gray River in the Sun:

Every Angeleno dreams of it at some point in their life - paddling down the Los Angeles River. The Los Angeles Area, after all, is named after its mission by the river. Mostly a trickle, but quite a run in the winter rain season - districts rise, fall, populations change, urban trends ebb and flow. But the drainage from the snowfall of the San Gabrielanos is a constant. And how could you not want to drift down it all, to look up at your city from its quiet underbelly?

Water is the lifeblood of LA - the city is based on the flow of containers from Los Angeles Harbor, drainages from Central California and the Colorado River. I could never quite put my finger on Los Angeles, but I always thought about it. People who don't know it curse it, writers who write about it glorify its villainy, spit on tinseltown, and admire the glamour all the like. But I had been reading the Qu'ran and considering the river:

As to those who are careful of their duty to their Lord, they shall have gardens beneath which rivers flow, abiding in them; an entertainment from their Lord. (The family of Imran 3:198)

The book, like LA, is often cursed, often worshipped. Like the book, once you read it, you realize it's actually just provincial and self-referential. LA is almost quaint, and its townspeople's innocence is hypnotic: a dreary freakshow in the sun. Paved paradise; America's ugliest city, a Club Med for the homeless. My ten years in the city have been just ordinary day-to-day; with occasional guideposts to remind me that LA is not normal; and that life here is anything but. The city is a mess - a constant confrontation of people, ideas and dreams, and all the cuisines, clubs, organizations and beliefs that fit in the little spaces in between. LA's mess is excusable, because it is unique. But I wouldn't dream this once for Middle America; sprawl's excess impacts the soul, and already the rest of America is beginning to resemble LA.

Photo: Erik Gauger