Sometimes my mind spirals into believing that the grass is greener on the other side. Scratch that – it’s more frequent than that. I wake up, and my thoughts drift into an active daydream, where all I can think about is how I wish I could live anywhere but here. Some people absolutely adore LA, thinking it’s the best place in the world where the beach meets the mountains. It would be, if I had time to enjoy either of these things regularly.
I often dream of residing in a smaller city, one where all my friends could live within walking distance, and neighbors hosted backyard barbecues that everyone on the street attended with enthusiasm. A city where gas is cheaper, rent is a fraction of what I pay, and the cost of food is lower, feels like where I belong. A place where people prioritize relationships over work. How I would love to be in a European country, where people walk everywhere, fresh food arrives daily, and a sense of community is abundant. Costa Rica has also piqued my interest. Walking barefoot in a jungle setting, swimming in the ocean, and indulging in freshly picked bananas while sporting yoga pants sounds like my ideal work environment.
However, the real promised land, in my eyes, is the South, particularly my hometown, Nashville, Tennessee. The grass there is literally greener than the grass in LA. That’s just a fact. In the South, kindness appears to be a way of life, and meeting friends is a simple arrangement, not a scheduling challenge. “Hey, want to come over Friday?” “Yes, I’m there!” It’s that easy in the South.
For a long time, Nashville has felt like the place I’m missing out on, the city I should already be living in if my career plans had worked out as I’d hoped. “This will all work out in three years, max!” I thought. “I’ll be a full-time, highly paid actor and writer after three years! Yup, I will.” Pardon me for a moment while I laugh out loud. HAHA. Right. Now, I have had seasons of being a full-time actor and writer, which has been amazing, but they’ve never been lucrative enough to be the only job I do. The struggles are real – we’re all overworked and underpaid, the strike is real! This is one reason why I’m still in LA. The dream inside of me has not died. If anything, it’s increased, which I find very annoying. Why couldn’t you want to be a dentist, Sarah? A humbling 9 to 5 job with paid vacation time and sick leave. Can you imagine. I can’t, which is why I am still in LA.
Most outsiders think I’m staying in LA for the mild climate with year-round 70-degree temperatures. Please. You can keep the constant sunshine. I crave seasons, all of them. I even miss the thrill of a good tornado. “Get the canned food! Take cover in the bathtub.” I’d trade that for another day of sun. I can’t even talk about the rain without getting emotional, thinking about my deep love for thunderstorms. A gray, misty sky with lightning striking through the clouds – bring it on, please!
The South gets all of this, plus seasons. They get fall. Oh, how I yearn to see enormous trees changing leaves, colors of rust brown, burnt orange, and fire-engine red, when autumn arrives. Meanwhile, here in LA, I’m craning my neck just to spot a leaf on these spindly things they call trees. A palm tree is not a tree in my book; it’s just a palm. Tennessee also has the hope of a white Christmas every year. Out here, I bundle up now in a winter coat in 68-degree weather because there’s a slight chill in the air. Down in the South, homes come with real fireplaces too, a work of art that fills the house with the scents of embers, driftwood, and pine needles, something that can never be replicated or bottled up in a “fireplace” candle, believe me; I’ve tried to force my apartment to smell like a campfire. It’s just not the same as the real thing.
Then there’s the humidity. Say what you want, but I long for that humid air. When the air is humid, my skin doesn’t break out; it’s dewy and moist. With the humidity that comes with living in the South, nobody can paint on eyebrows or line their lips; it would melt right off. I like that – seeing people’s faces as they are, sweat dripping down and all.
Can you tell, I’ve been homesick lately? Thankfully, this past month, I had the opportunity to take a trip to the South. Unlike my usual visits, which often take place during the holiday season, this was a different kind of trip, one where I didn’t have to pound espresso to have the stamina to rush around trying to see all my relatives. This trip, I was going to visit my friend and her three kids, and I couldn’t have been more excited. My plan was to immerse myself in her day-to-day life, in her charming, quaint neighborhood. For three days, I was going to experience what seemed like my perfect life – one where neighbors were known, community was a way of life, the weather was cool with a fall breeze, and Southern hospitality surrounded me. I was going to the promised land baby!
***
When I arrived late on Monday, my friend greeted me with a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re here! I’ve been so lonely!” Lonely? In a place with a population of 20? To be fair, Nashville’s population is 692,000, not 20, but LA is almost 4 million!I feel that difference. “Everyone is so busy these days. It’s hard to see anyone, and when I can, it means sitting in traffic for 40 minutes with three kids, a nightmare.” I pulled away, surprised. “You have traffic that bad down here?” My friend nodded. “It’s the worst. The world seems to be getting too crowded.” I lay in bed that night, pondering what my cousin had said – “I’ve been so lonely.” She wasn’t supposed to be lonely; it was the South. Loneliness is what I wrestle with in LA. It wasn’t supposed to be the same here too.
I drifted off to sleep that night, wondering if everyone in the world was lonely right now. Were we all living life in overdrive, taking on too many odd jobs or not doing anything to fill our cup to avoid spending money? I pondered that as I woke up the next morning and walked down the street to grab a cup of coffee at “The best coffee in town.” I ordered a cold brew with oat milk. “We don’t have oat milk,” a barista drinking green tea, clearly with zero passion for coffee, informed me. I nodded and politely accepted my dark black, watery cold brew. I took a sip and struggled to swallow it. This was not the best coffee in town. I know this is a first-world problem, but this was supposed to be my promised land! And my promised land comes with oat milk. What was happening?
As I sipped my black water, I walked around the quaint downtown area, marveling at how clean the streets were. I looked up at the sky and admired the fluffy clouds – actual clouds, what a gift! An elderly man smiled at me and wished me a good morning. My heart warmed. “Good morning,” I replied. Then I turned the corner and accidentally bumped into a woman. “Oh, I’m sorry!” I said. She threw her hands up in defense and scowled “Sure.” Then she rolled her eyes and hurried past me. I stood there, stunned. She felt colder than the coldest person I’d ever encountered in LA on a walk. The grass was not beginning to feel greener over here.
I headed to my friend’s house and spent the morning playing with her three boys. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the ends of the bread for lunch because life is expensive – I get it. I’m not here to complain about what she served me; the natural, organic bread was a nice touch. However, it made me realize that things weren’t necessarily as cheap down here as I had assumed.
“Let’s go outside!” her oldest son hollered. We all ventured outside to play in the yard and swing when, unexpectedly, the sun emerged. It was the end of September. Why was the sun blazing? Why weren’t any of the leaves displaying their characteristic fall colors? That expected autumn weather was nowhere to be found. Instead, it was blistering hot, and I my body was dripping in sweat. “Where is fall?” I asked. My friend groaned, “The heat has been unbearable down here lately.” Hold up. You are not getting fall either? This is Tennessee! You’re supposed to have seasons! I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my shirt. Okay, maybe this humidity wasn’t as foxy as I recalled.
I settled into one of her black lawn chairs, watching her boys build sand moats in their sandbox and wondered what had happened to my promised land. It wasn’t cheaper, it was scorching hot, the seasons were elusive, building a sense of community was still a challenge due to busy mom schedules and traffic congestion, and not everyone exuded hospitality, as evidenced by that dear scowling woman that morning. It was then that I had a glimmer of hope for one more thing.
I turned to my cousin and smiled, “How are your neighbors? I bet they’re great, right?” She tightened her lips. “Awful. They’re meth addicts.” In this cozy, Mayberry-like neighborhood, she had meth addicts for neighbors? “The cops were called last month. I don’t talk to them, but I heard one is going through rehab now so I guess that’s good.” I learned back in the lawn chair and sighed. Of course, the neighbors were meth addicts. In this beautiful, charming Southern neighborhood, where everything seemed pristine, simpler, easier, and less stressful, I learned that weekend that while their grass was indeed greener here than in LA, it wasn’t necessarily a better place to live.
***
I sit at a Whole Foods in Glendale, a neighborhood in LA, as I write this and observe the handful of people sharing a meal around me. There are many of them. It’s an overcast day, which I appreciate. My lunch cost me $6.50 because I’ve become a master of pinching pennies at the Whole Foods hot bar. Here’s a secret: avoid the fruit; it’ll weigh down your box and cost you double digits. While I yearn for a place that’s smaller, simpler, and cooler, I know this means it would come with less artists, writing opportunities, acting jobs and table reads. So what am I to do?
The high cost of living seems to be ubiquitous, and global warming has made the world uncomfortably hot nearly everywhere. Yet, as I look at all these people enjoying their communal mealtime, I realize having consistent community with people that live near me is what I desire most. But is this something I can do? Everyone I know is an artist, hustling with a day job and working on their craft in whatever spare hours they can find. “Fun” is not something us artistic people are great at, but as I watch these various people enjoy their communal mealtime, I realize perhaps I am right where I belong.
The thing is I want a simpler life, but I am a complex person. I want a more affordable cost of living, but I don’t want to live off the grid, and I am desperate for a cooler place to call home, but I don’t like being cold for long periods of time. I may never have friends that live on the same street as me, but I can make strides to see people I love to hang out with in LA on a regular basis. That I can improve on. It may take time and I will probably still wrestle with guilt when I hang with them because “I’m not doing enough for my craft in this free moment,” but one thing I know is for certain now: The grass is not greener on the other side.
