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auberginesdonthavelimbs · 5 years

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Phanniemay Day 30: Moving On

Word count: 3823

TW for discussion of bereavement

(This is a sequel to Grave and Memories. You don’t have to read those to understand this, but they do provide some context.)

“Well, how do you feel?” Phantom asked when Snowdrift finally stepped out from behind the screen. She was back in her everyday clothes, all the ostentatious regalia hung up and soon to be stored away for the next big ceremony. She was running a brush through her fur, and it slowed then stopped as she seriously considered Phantom’s question.

“I don’t know … I mean, I feel nervous, of course. I feel overjoyed and relieved. I feel proud.” She shrugged. “But I think I still feel like me. Is that a bad thing?” Phantom shook his head.

“I think it just means that you were right. That you were and are ready for this. You still feel like yourself because the Chief of the Far Frozen is who you are; it’s what you’re meant to be.” Snowdrift blushed.

“You know, somehow I’m always surprised by your insightfulness, Phantom. I never see it coming, and then you just say something that cuts right to the core of the matter, and it all makes sense.”

“Bit of a backhanded compliment, I think, but I’ll take it.” They both laughed, and Snowdrift walked over to sit next to Phantom on her bed. “But for real though,” he said quietly. “How do you feel, right now?” Phantom put his arm around her as best as he could. It barely reached halfway, but she leaned into the embrace.

“Danny …” she whispered. Her breathing was regular and deep, and Phantom was slowly rocked back and forth by the movement. “I can’t begin to put it into words. This was the biggest, most important day of my life, and now it’s over, but it’s also just the beginning. This is my life now. I’m the Chief.” She sighed. “Even though I’ve been preparing for centuries, it’s going to take some getting used to.” Snowdrift pulled away from Phantom, and he straightened up as he turned to meet her gaze.

“But that still doesn’t answer the question, does it?” she said with a half-smile. Then she sighed and turned away, staring at nothing. “Right now, Phantom, I feel exhausted. And I love your company, always, but I think I should rest.” Phantom nodded.

“I think that’s a good idea.” He rose and floated over to the door. “I’ll see you later, Snowdrift. Sweet dreams.” She smiled gently.

“Thank you.”

Phantom flew down the halls with the confidence of someone who had traveled the same path dozens of times. When the ice palace had first been built, at Snowdrift’s behest, Phantom usually just flew intangibly through the walls, ignoring the layout entirely. But eventually, he realized that that was generally considered pretty rude - that the walls were there for a reason. Well, more like Plasmius had explained the concept to him, and Phantom was immensely embarrassed and confused as to why no one had ever mentioned it before.

“It’s about power, and about respect,” Plasmius had explained. “You need to acknowledge that you have both of those things in spades, and that can make it difficult for people to point out your flaws to you. But, be assured, this is more a curse than a blessing. Moreso than most, you need to be constantly aware of the effects that your actions have on people, lest you unknowingly cause offense or harm.”

Phantom was grateful to have Plasmius around to explain stuff like that to him. He had once thought of Plasmius as manipulative and cold. But after they reconnected, Phantom realized that Plasmius was simply aware of the forces at play in interpersonal and social dynamics, and that, indeed, being ignorant of those forces would generally lead to more harm than good.

Of course, there were plenty of times where Phantom taught Plasmius things, too. But those things were usually either so specific as to be essentially meaningless, or so esoteric as to be impossible to measure. He had been the first person to explain to Plasmius in a way that made sense to him why black hole propulsion was never going to be practical for their purposes, and Phantom was proud of that, but it wasn’t exactly life-changing information. And he could tell that Plasmius had become much softer after spending time with him, much more honest and in touch with his own feelings and others’, but Phantom couldn’t really know that he had directly had an effect in that regard.

Plus, Plasmius had always been a polymath, mastering every field he touched. Even when Phantom did have the pleasure of teaching Plasmius about something, it usually wasn’t long before Plasmius was as much of an expert as Phantom himself was. It made Phantom feel like he was always racing just to keep up, and it was the reason that, even though they were the same age for all practical purposes, Phantom had never quite been able to shake his impression of Plasmius as being older and more experienced than he was.

Well, Phantom thought as he landed outside the ice palace, at least he would always have the Far Frozen. The climate was uncomfortable for hot-core ghosts like Plasmius, so he wasn’t particularly inclined to spend a lot of time here. For Phantom, however, the Far Frozen had come to feel like home. Earth was Phantom’s birthplace, of course, and he had lived there exclusively for over two hundred years, and occasionally for another two hundred after that. But those memories were so faded, and Earth had changed so much, that he rarely even cared to visit anymore.

The Far Frozen, however, always felt just the same, and it was always full of people whom Phantom was happy to see, and who were happy to see him. Snowdrift, of course, was one of his best friends, and he’d been thrilled to be a part of her inauguration. But, if Phantom were being entirely honest with himself, there was another reason why he had been excited to visit. Another person.

Phantom had noticed Icequake in the crowd earlier - somehow, from among the thousand similar faces, eirs had jumped out at him - and he suspected ey was still somewhere in the town centre. Though the inauguration had officially ended a little while ago, it seemed like the afterparty was just getting started, and would last well into the night. Already the musicians who had performed during the ceremony had been replaced by a group playing dance music, and Phantom noticed that a significant percentage of the crowd were carrying drinks that they must have brought themselves.

Phantom had meant to walk through the crowd quickly to find Icequake, but there were so many people that he hadn’t seen in a long time, and everyone was in such a jovial mood. He ended up spending over an hour walking around, talking to a person or people for several minutes, then walking a few paces away only to run into another person or people and spend several minutes talking to them, and so on. He wasn’t complaining, though. The mood of the party was infectious, and Phantom was enjoying himself immensely. At least, he thought he was, until he saw someone who put his paltry enjoyment to shame by eir own radiant joy.

Icequake was standing dead centre of an otherwise empty circular clearing that had been designated by the collective as a dance floor, and ey was absolutely killing it. The dance was complicated and clearly perfected over hours and hours of practice. Phantom had tried to learn similar dances before, with moderate success, but he was never the most coordinated. And, anyway, he was happy to just watch, especially when the dancer was so captivating.

When the song ended, everyone in the immediate vicinity cheered, and Icequake took a bow. As the next song started, a different style but no less energetic, other people moved into the circle and started dancing, using simpler, less choreographed movements, just improvising to the music. Phantom was debating whether to jump in when Icequake suddenly noticed him. Ey rushed over to the edge of the circle and grabbed him in a tight but far from uncomfortable hug.

“Phantom!” ey shouted, both to be heard over the music and, Phantom surmised based on eir expression, genuine, uncontained excitement.

“Icequake!” Phantom shouted back, throwing his arms around eir midsection. His hands didn’t even come close to touching. He had been planning on saying something like, ‘it’s so great to see you,’ but he decided that the hug conveyed the sentiment well enough, and so he just dedicated himself to that for the moment. It lasted a lot longer than Phantom had anticipated, and he tried, and failed miserably, not to let that fact get his hopes up. Finally, Icequake pulled back, taking hold of Phantom’s hands as ey did.

“Come, you have to dance with me,” ey said authoritatively. Phantom laughed.

“Well, I can’t argue with that logic,” he said. Icequake walked backward into the circle and Phantom followed, keeping hold of eir hands.

Phantom had no idea how long they spent dancing. Timekeeping in the Far Frozen was pretty casual, and dancing with Icequake had a way of warping Phantom’s internal sense of time. All he could say for sure was that they had danced just as long as they could, being driven from the makeshift dance floor by sheer exhaustion. Half-laughing, half-panting, Phantom and Icequake made their way to a nearby bench to sit down. The crowd had thinned out quite a bit, Phantom noted, and now consisted primarily of younger, more intense, party-animal types. As much as Phantom loved that energy in Icequake, he was content just sitting on the sidelines while they had their fun.

While they watched the revelers, Phantom and Icequake talked, mostly just catching up. As ever, Icequake was impressed by how exciting Phantom’s life was, and Phantom was impressed by how stable eirs was. Of course, that stability didn’t stop em from making eir own fun, and ey regaled Phantom with stories of eir escapades. Ey seemed so happy, as happy as Phantom felt. And ey kept saying how happy ey was to be with Phantom, to be sharing these things with him. Phantom felt hope rising in his chest again, and, this time, he questioned his instinct to push it down. What if there really was something here, and he was the one holding it back?

“Hey,” he said cautiously when there was a natural pause in the conversation. “So, uh, it’s kinda loud here, isn’t it? Maybe we could go somewhere quieter to talk?” Something flashed across Icequake’s face too fast for Phantom to make sense of it, and then ey said,

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Come on, we can go to my place.” Phantom nodded and followed em through the square. He had been to Icequake’s house plenty of times, entirely platonically, but, somehow, in this instance, it felt intimate. As they walked through the threshold, Phantom could swear he felt a tingle of electricity. As if reading his mind, Icequake said,

“It’s exciting, isn’t it? The change, the newness.” Phantom glanced at em, confused. “I mean,” ey said as ey walked with Phantom to eir living room, “everything looks the same as it did this morning, but it’s all different now. We have a new Chief, and it just … it feels like anything could happen, you know?” Ey sat down on one side of eir large, plush couch, and Phantom took the other side, sitting sideways to face Icequake and pulling his knees up to his chest. Icequake turned to face Phantom, folding one leg in front of em while the other dangled.

“I think I actually know exactly what you mean.” Phantom had so much to say, but he didn’t know how to say it. He didn’t know whether he should say it. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“What are you thinking about?” Icequake said softly. Eir face was gentle, concerned, but there was something else there, too. Phantom didn’t dare name it.

“I … I’m thinking … about the future. About what … what I - what we could … do. Or be.” Phantom was looking down at his hands, which were gripping his shins to tightly that his knuckles hurt. He was surprised by and entirely unprepared for the large, furry hand that reached out to caress his face. Phantom inhaled sharply and looked up, locking eyes with Icequake. The unnamed emotion was more obvious now, dominating eir expression. Greif, Phantom thought. The word seemed to pierce his core.

“You told me once,” ey began, speaking barely above a whisper, “that you thought you could never love again. Do you remember that?” Phantom swallowed. He opened his mouth with an immense effort and tried to speak, though he ended up mouthing more than saying the word,

“Yes.”

Phantom felt his eyes prickling, and he tried to blink away the tears before they came. Icequake sighed and pulled back. “No,” Phantom said quickly, his voice cracking. “No, I don’t … I know I said that, but that was a long time ago.” He reached out to take eir hand, and ey seemed hesitant but didn’t resist.

“I don’t know that I can explain to you how long it’s been, for me. You’re a full ghost; you were made for this kind of timescale, but I wasn’t. My mind can’t hold on to things the way yours does. Believe me, I tried to hold on, and it …” Phantom was starting to shake, and he took a steadying breath. “It didn’t work, and it just caused me more pain.” Icequake shook eir head.

“You’re right. I don’t think I understand. You told me that you couldn’t really remember your human wife anymore, but you said that you were still in love with her, and that you couldn’t be with anyone else because of that.” Phantom looked down at his hands again.

“I … yes. Yes, I did say that. I remember saying that, and I remember meaning it. I was still grieving, as strange as that seems. Even though she’d been gone for, what, five, six hundred years? Even though I couldn’t recall a single day I spent with her, it still felt fresh because I had held on to those memories for so long that, when I found I couldn’t remember anymore, I had to basically start the grieving process over again. Because, all that time, on some level, it felt like she was still with me, and then she wasn’t anymore.” Phantom chuckled.

“You know, for a long time, I had this poem on my wall. Old, old poem, but art has a way of speaking to things that are so fundamental that it always manages to be relevant. And this poem, it just spoke to me. It felt so true and so important.

“The speaker of the poem is someone who fell deeply in love with a woman, and then she died young, and the speaker is faced with a life without their true love. But it’s ok, they say, ‘for the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee, and the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee. And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride.’ That is, as long as they still remember her, it’s like she’s still there. They can close their eyes and think of her and be lying by her side again.

“And that’s what I did, for way too long. I clung to my memories like they were the actual person, and I never let myself accept that she was really gone, because I could still feel her.” He laughed again.

“But that’s actually not the end of the poem. I don’t know how I had the thing hanging on my wall for literal centuries and never thought about it - well, maybe I did think about it and just interpreted it differently - but the poet actually kind of condemns the speaker. The full line is, “I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride in her sepulchure there by the sea, in her tomb by the sounding sea.”

“So the speaker has that comfort of their memories, but it comes at the cost of their own life. They’re holding on to a dead person, so, naturally, they go where she goes. They follow her into the grave.” Phantom’s eyes were prickling again. “I was in Sam’s grave for so long, and getting out was maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And, you know, it sucks, because now I’m in this awkward place where I don’t remember her at all, but I still remember my grief, and sometimes I still feel sad or guilty without having a real sense of what I’m sad or guilty about.”

Phantom realized he’d been talking for a long time, and Icequake was kind of just looking at him.

“I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not in that place anymore. I’m moving on; I’m ready to keep living my life. And, if you were so inclined, I’d like it if you would join me.” Icequake looked down at their entwined hands.

“I’ve known you for so long, and I never really thought about how different you are from other ghosts. I knew, but I suppose I didn’t realize how much it affected you.” Ey was quiet for a moment, eir face twisted in thought. Finally, and very slowly, ey said, “do you remember the first time we met?” Ey looked back up, and Phantom saw fear in eir eyes, like ey wasn’t sure ey wanted to hear the answer.

“I think about it a lot,” Phantom said cautiously, “but with human memory, that doesn’t always count for much. Sometimes remembering something more often just means that the memory gets distorted even faster, until you don’t know whether any part of it actually happened.” Icequake’s eyebrows pulled together.

“That sounds terrible.” Phantom shrugged. Maybe it was, but dwelling on it wouldn’t help. “Tell me what you remember.”

“About the first time we met?” Ey nodded. “Okay, well, it was back before we built permanent portals on space stations, but I still lived close to Earth, so I would come here to visit once in a while. And I was ... walking around, I guess. And you came up to me, and you were just, the sassiest goddamn person I’d ever seen.” Icequake snickered, and Phantom smiled both at eir reaction and at the memory.

“You sort of swaggered up, and I thought maybe you were going to pick a fight. And you asked me whether I thought I was better than everyone else because I was a good fighter, and because I fought someone really strong and won. And I said no, of course not, and you said that it was stupid how much your culture valued fighting over other skills, and it wasn’t fair that I got all the attention when so many people were good at other things and no one cared.

“And I agreed with you, and you looked like you really didn’t want to believe me, but then finally you were like, fine, okay, I guess you’re not the worst.” Icequake was barely containing eir laughter.

“Yeah,” ey said, “that’s pretty accurate. Except you left out the part where you had just gotten off the stage from giving a speech about bravery and strength and suchlike. So, I was kind of justified in coming up to talk to you. I didn’t just randomly accost you on the street.”

“Oh,” Phantom said, caught somewhere between embarrassment and a familiar disquiet. “That … does make more sense.” Then he shook his head slightly and smiled. “I guess I’ve only focused on the part that was important to me, which was you.” Icequake blushed. Looking back down at their hands, ey said,

“I think I fell in love with you just a little bit that day. And you’re right; I didn’t want to, because I thought you were everything that was wrong with the Far Frozen. But then I talked to you, and you were really cool, and you really seemed to be listening to me, and to care what I thought. And, of course, you were cute.” Now Phantom was blushing, and Icequake giggled.

“Do you want to know something terrible?” ey asked with a mischievous grin. Phantom nodded apprehensively. “I found Snowdrift a few days later, and I asked her about you. I actually asked whether you were available.”

“No, you didn’t!” Icequake shook eir head, still giggling.

“Oh, no, that’s not the terrible part. The terrible part is that she said, ‘you’re not the first person to ask me that, and you won’t be the last.’” Phantom’s jaw dropped, and Icequake gave up on decorum and just started guffawing.

“… what?” Phantom asked after he had been silent for at least thirty seconds. Icequake got eir laughter under control, looked at Phantom’s face, and then fell into another laughing fit. Eventually, eir breath evened out.

“Phantom, you’re a heartbreaker. People can’t help but fall in love with you. I think even Snowdrift, for a while ...” ey trailed off suggestively. Phantom stared, unblinking.

“ … What?” he repeated, unsure whether he had gotten the point across the first time. Icequake smiled warmly and caressed his face again.

“Nevermind that, now,” ey said. Ey looked out the window. “Do you think it’s tomorrow yet?” Phantom finally managed to shake himself out of his stupor and followed eir gaze. Out in the open Ghost Zone, it was possible to track time by the cyclic brightening and darkening of the atmosphere, caused by the waves of different sources of ecto-energy coming into and out of phase. Here in town, however, it was difficult to tell the difference between night and day without some kind of timekeeping device, and there wasn’t one in the room.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I can’t have our anniversary being on the same day as the anniversary of the Cheif’s inauguration. The day after I can deal with.” Phantom turned around sharply to look back at Icequake.

“Is … is a yes then? You want to go out with me?” Icequake stared at him silently for a moment with narrowed eyes.

“How is it that you can be so smart and yet so thick? Yes, of course it’s a yes.” Phantom beamed and practically threw himself forward to hug em. Ey laughed and patted him on the back. “Yeah,” ey said. “I feel the same way.”

And for a time, while they cuddled together on the couch, the past didn’t exist at all for Phantom. There was only the present moment and the promise of many future moments like it.

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sumukhcomedy · 4 years

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Gentrification and Self-Awareness in Highland Park

I moved to Los Angeles in 2016. My primary reason was for comedy. I enjoyed being a comedian and my career was best suited to progress by being in Los Angeles. But I also wanted to leave Ohio and to experience something different than the 3 decades that I spent there.

I ended up moving to Highland Park. The reasons I moved there were not elaborate or based off any real research. I found a studio apartment I liked and that I could afford. The neighborhood seemed fine enough and it was located in Northeast Los Angeles which was close to where my cousin lived and where a lot of the comedy shows I enjoyed were located.

I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland and I have always been attracted to experiencing all different kinds of places and people. That’s the draw to city living. I like to experience a city for what it is: its people, its history, and its culture. The suburbs never truly had that and much of that is based on how the history of suburbs were developed. So, in living in both Columbus and in Los Angeles, and in any visits I would make to other cities for comedy, I tried my best to be a part of the city in my experience there in the way that the city was.

By March 2017, I had the opportunity to run a comedy show at Book Show, a bookstore located on the corner of Ave 55 and Figueroa in Highland Park. As anyone who knows me at all is aware, Book Show is closing at the end of the year. Book Show predates my arrival even into Highland Park. But, over the course of both Book Show and my residence in Highland Park, the presence of real estate interests and commercialization of both Figueroa and York has expanded quickly and dramatically.

As I mentioned before, in moving to Highland Park, I actually would want to experience the neighborhood in its most conventional sense and I have in a number of ways. I regularly go to the Arroyo Seco Library and while returning the book, Evicted, the library aide behind the counter and I started discussing gentrification. He described his own experiences growing up in Highland Park and suggested I read Peter Moskowitz’s How To Kill a City. Not only did I appreciate the book suggestion but I also appreciated this friendship and we converse regularly now when I go to the library on a wide array of topics. Not only is it what makes being in a city great but also what makes going to the library great.

Either way, Moskowitz’s book was eye-opening for someone like myself. I had always had self-awareness of my place in any of the locations where I lived. But, now being in Highland Park, it stood out to me the total lack of awareness of those around me. This was colonization. Worse, much like Moskowitz conveyed, I was part of that colonization by moving here 4 years ago.

So, how to approach that? Well, first, I acknowledge my place as unfortunately being a part of gentrification. My reasons for moving to Highland Park were because it was affordable for L.A. (it is now not so affordable but, luckily, I have a good enough relationship with my landlady where she does not raise my rent). I am by no means a long-time resident nor purport myself to be nor try to embrace Highland Park as my own. However, I also don’t disregard Highland Park while living there. I interact with the people, businesses, and establishments that have been there long before I have and, in many cases, prefer them.

Gentrification was already present when I arrived to Highland Park. Through the 4 years I’ve lived there, it’s progressed even more. So many new establishments have popped up from “Hippo,” which I mock for its unnecessary use of a comma in its name to Triple Beam Pizza where you hold up your hands to show how much pizza you want to Home State. They arrived to the neighborhood, make no outreach to the neighborhood other than to their own primarily white demographic, and have long lines pouring out of their venues of that very primarily white demographic. After reading Moskowitz’s book, walking on Figueroa stood out to me much differently. Every time I walk by Home State it feels like the definition of what Moskowitz wrote about. Here are a ton of people eating brunch on a patio and interacting with only each other and with a total disregard for the neighborhood and environment that they are in. It is no different than the suburbs. The kids of the suburbs have brought their money and their interests to the city and commercial real estate developers have had no problem feeding those kids. Worse, it feels like some sort of cartoon with businesses with catchy names or ironic approaches to your dining experience.

It would be one thing for everyone to simply lack self-awareness. It’s another thing to watch the gall and arrogance of those in real estate. The level to which some in real estate choose to market and brand neighborhoods can come off in such an insulting and disrespectful way to the community.

An apparent recent incident at Donut Friend on York

I feel I can speak to that if only because the marketing usually involves what they see as comedy. A most recent post from a Los Angeles real estate agent about Highland Park used some sort of comedy sketch about Highland Park. Even if this was meant to be satire, it’s not very good satire and why the real estate agent chose to post it is beyond me. The same goes for this dumb real estate agent group from Denver which the Internet rightfully tore into. Real estate agents pass off their marketing as “fun” without any decency or respect for the very land, property, and people that they are dealing with and profiting off of.

Additionally, purely as a comedian, white people poking fun at other white people for gentrification or “liberal bubbles” is simply done. There’s nothing funny to be had from it anymore and, as a comedian, I feel like we actually need more white people in these neighborhoods taking action to better this issue rather than to make fun of it, gain success from making fun of it, and then move on to the next thing to make fun of.

But this is how gentrification works and it’s working sadly too well in Highland Park. Real estate developers and city government salivate at the money made. Outside real estate agents (usually white) disregard the nature of the neighborhood and its history. New residents arrive and choose to live in the manner that they want and with no care for the long-time residents. The real estate developers then fuel the interests of the new residents to carve the neighborhood into theirs rather than respect the long-time residents. Rather than create a balanced, diverse environment, the neighborhood becomes imbalanced and no better than colonization. I’ve attended neighborhood council meetings and they feel just as meaningless as you’d expect.

Look, I’ve lived for 4 years in Highland Park so who the fuck am I to say anything? I’m self-aware of that which is why I mostly kept quiet on the topic. But the fact that I am saying something now is necessary because no one else in my position is. I have self-awareness of my place in this neighborhood. I am a comedian and an entertainer and I don’t think that its use with gentrification by real estate agents or even others in comedy is helpful at all. I care a great deal about community in all aspects particularly community in the places that I live. I still aspire to be better than even where I am at right now on those topics. And, yet, I additionally watch as a majority of my generation and younger in this neighborhood who have moved here don’t care at all about it. They are choosing to carve Highland Park into their image rather than embrace and amalgamate to the image it had created for itself over its long history.

Every time over the years that I would bring up that I run a show and live in Highland Park, so many people would tell me how “awesome” or “cool” the neighborhood was and how they wanted to move there. And, now I’m at a point where I hate to hear that because I know that the reasons they want to move to the neighborhood are for all the wrong ones. They want to be closer to this brewery or this chic bowling alley or this vegan brunch spot.

I love Highland Park because I talked to my elderly neighbor who has lived in this neighborhood for decades regularly and I can work on my conversational Spanish with her. I hugged her when, after I returned from the road for comedy, I found out her husband passed away. I go to the library regularly. I’ll go play pick-up basketball at the rec center. I say hello to the people at numerous tables set up selling stuff or the various street vendors on Figueroa. I’ll go to a restaurant where the menu is all in Spanish. It’s the experience I would want and the experience that makes living in a city unique. Having a place like Donut Friend is fine but why the hell would you want 800 Donut Friend-type places?

In creating Laughterhouse 5 at Book Show, what made it so enjoyable for me was that it fit so many of the visions that I had for it. I know Jen, the owner of Book Show, felt the same way. I wanted to create a show that was a great stand-up comedy show but that also reached out to everyone in the neighborhood and the community. Occasionally we had long-time residents in the audience. Many times we had newer residents open to a new experience attend. But even though this was a comedy show run by an Indian-American guy in a feminist/lesbian/circus experience of a book store, we still cared a great deal about the neighborhood, its people, and its issues. What limited money we generated from the show went back into the store and into the programs the store ran to give back to the community and its youth. I’m disappointed I won’t be a part of that anymore but it also allows me to now write this because I’m frustrated at others of my age group or of my similar experience in L.A. who don’t attempt to interact in this way either.

It’s necessary to support your local Mom and Pop businesses, respect your neighborhoods and their history, people, and culture, and the organizations or grassroots groups that try to address these issues. Otherwise, you are also just as much a part of the displacement of others as those at the top.

#highland park #los angeles #la #real estate #gentrification #displacement #rent #millennial #hipster

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