THIS PAST WEEKEND’S RAIN WAS A welcome cleansing. The days after a good raining are some of my favorites in this city. The air gets all sweet smelling, and the trees are shiny, it’s like a layer of grime has been washed off and we get to see the beauty of all that lies underneath the day to day ugliness.
In many ways, it reminds me of the holidays. People are on vacation, and the traffic dies down and the city goes a little quieter and we get to enjoy the city in ways that we simply can’t when we are in the regular crush of life.
But that clean feeling only lasts for a few short hours, maybe a day or two, and it only lasts so long as you don’t look too closely at what is happening around us.
On Sunday morning, I grabbed a friend and we went for a bike ride. It was one of those perfect Sunday morning rides, kind of a Goldilocks day — not too hot, not too cold, not too windy, not too still. It was just right.
We took the bike path south, and it’s an interesting thing to me, the further south you get, the uglier it becomes. As you leave Santa Monica, you come to the first real change in scenery; the parking lot at Rose and the bike path, where there are new showers and baths, and a semi-permanent encampment of transients (Yes, I realize the irony in that sentence!) In the lot are a collection of RVs and motorhomes that bear the scars of a well-traveled existence.
The assembled autos are like portable statuary that have been tagged by graffiti artists and displayed to showcase the commentary of their owners on the state of the world. There’s the obligatory political statements calling for the revolution of the government, and the overhauling of society at all levels, even to the degree of what food we should consume.
Further down the bike path, there is another group of individuals, these are usually younger and more vocal in their disdain for all things social, except for their collective need for more alcohol and something called “420.” There was this one group of people, and among them was a woman who was quite ragged, but she was very cheerful and wished us a “Good Morning” as we rode by.
Cruising down to the Washington Boulevard turnoff from the bike path, one comes upon the more affluent, but still highly artistic crowds who are hanging out at the various coffeehouses, generally in groups of three to five, discussing how sick our society is, as they sip their lattes.
We kept going, right along the bike path to that long stretch along the jetty that divides the Los Angeles River and the Marina, right where the UCLA crew teams are housed. It’s a hard ride for me. Not from the physical standpoint — I’ve certainly ridden longer and in worse conditions — but it’s hard because of the disparity of what I see.
On one part of the ride, there is amazing wealth and beauty. Homes worth millions, housing people who make decisions that affect thousands of other people.
On another part, there is crushing poverty and filth. The trash of life, both human and plastic is scattered along the road, in the gutters and in the waterways, like so many dandelion seeds blowing in the wind.
We stop for breakfast at this little coffeehouse in Playa, and there, as I eat my eggs and sip my coffee, I see the homes on the side of the cliff that symbolize the success and drive of hard work. And as I ride back along the jetty, I see the plastic cups and bags, the soda cans and the trash that has been washed downstream, thanks to the weekend’s rain.
I’m very grateful to live here, and I’m very happy that I get to have the experiences I do. Most people have only either the wealth they are born into, or the crushing poverty that they cannot escape, as their vantage point on the world.
We who live in this enchanted little cul de sac, on the edge of the Pacific, have the opportunity, on a regular basis, to come face to face with the other extreme of our own life. No matter where we are on the scale of wealth, it’s good to have that range of experience.
Like a cleansing rain that clears away the dust of life, confronting the good and the bad makes me more appreciative of where I am and what I have. It’s not always pretty to see the other side of life. There’s a lot of trash in the river, but there’s also a really great show of life, with the shorebirds shrieking, and the crabs scrambling for breakfast.
DAVID PISARRA is a family law lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He or (310) 664- 9969.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 25, 2007. Read the original PDF.