Stream of Consciousness

When I was looking to move to LA from New York City, I saw these pictures online that made apartments seem like resorts—Jacuzzis, marble countertops, Spanish tile. I was moving to La La land! Only when I landed, it was Koreatown with roaches. So much for what you see in pictures.

If it looks too good to be true, chances are it is. Like the house on the West side in my price range. The fact that the real estate agent had me entering along the side of the property through the back door was the first clue. There was no front door. It was one of those boarded up the-bank-took-it-over jobs. A sign hung on the sliding glass door, “BEWARE—if someone tries to rent you this property they are out of compliance with the law.”

“A thousand dollars will fix it up,” the agent claimed in his close-the-deal-for-commission-way. No driveway. Some strange solar shed behind the house. Holes in the ceiling. “An attic!” exclaimed the agent. A rat trap, I thought to myself. Faucets missing in the bathroom. There was a weightedness to the property. Like someone hung themselves and the spirit was still in the dirty carpet.

A SUV was merging onto the 10-E when it lost control, the front tires collapsing, it spun into the lane next to me, then rolled over on the highway, rolling over the guardrail, toppling down to the trees below. It freaked me out. One minute you’re thinking about buying real estate, the next, you are realizing you just missed smashing into a toppling SUV.

I called my mother. “A car just rolled over on the highway as it was merging on the freeway in the lane next to me.”

I don’t remember what she said. I was looking for comfort. But she was not the one to call with this story.

When my sister was killed in a car crash, her ex-husband replaced the board covering the front door with glass in the house she was renting before my parents came out to go through her belongings. That made it seem more like a home, rather than a foreclosure.

I’d like to board up the memories of her death…tear up the dirty carpet and replace it with new…but it lingers in these moments where I witness a SUV rolling over the guardrail—reminding me of how things change in an instant, how I am stripped of my faucets, leaving holes in the ceiling, a weightedness to our property impossible to resell, just a sign on the subconscious marked for resale.