When the Jeffersons took a new place, it was described as "moving on up," exchanging an unsatisfying, old way of life for an obviously new and improved one. People celebrated, a maid was hired, ratings soared.
I'm not quite sure how to describe what I am doing now. You see, after two years, I am leaving the green pastures of Davis.
And moving to Los Angeles.
CBS was not terribly interested. The Neilsen people did not call. No one other than my landlady will be cheering when I start paying rent in West L.A. And although I am hoping to meet some quirky new neighbors, I probably won't be able to afford a sassy, back-talking maid any time soon.
So in short, I'm not so sure my move is either on or up.
The lease starts August 1st, so by the time anybody reads this, I will be surrounded by smog and asphalt, trying my best to smile my way through interviews for jobs I don't really want but am just taking until I get my break. Whenever and whatever that is.
I'm excited, don't get me wrong. This is not a prison sentence. No one is forcing me to go. In the natural arc of a person's life, some of these jumps are important. They are the moments we relive and remember. Passed by, they become regrets. Embraced, they are turning points.
But even though this is of my own volition, I have to say I'm leaving Davis with mixed emotions. My time here has been fruitful and fun. There is an ironic charm about this place--where urban planners lobby for frogs and smokers huddle together in outcast colonies of the damned.
This town and its style have left an impression on me.
For example: Day three in L.A., I turned down a perfectly good one-bedroom, with fireplace and hardwood floors, washer-dryer, Beverly adjacent, first month free, because there just weren't enough bike racks around.
It took me two weeks to find an apartment in a city with a 25 percent vacancy rate because of stuff like this. I was late for appointments down there because I had no idea how to measure time. My internal clock was off. Ten minutes by bike in Davis gets me two miles. In a car on the 405, it's 15 miles. On Santa Monica Boulevard--eight blocks. Sometimes, you have to move twice as fast just to stay in place.
In Davis it wasn't like that. Traffic jams were charming. More often than not they were mere bike fender-benders or the overturning of trucks filled with plump and juicy vegetables (don't get me started there--L.A.'s idea of fresh fruit is Skittles).
And while sometimes I complained that life was Slow in Yolo (which, by the way, is how I always signed my letters to Dear Abby), now, in the face of business lunches and three-way-cellular-phone-conference-calls, the thought of playing pool at the Saloon or just browsing in Bogie's Books before grabbing an ice cream sounds pretty good.
Simple, but good.
Not sure I'm going to have much simple and good in the next few years. More likely life will get difficult and mediocre. Stress, you know--the rat race. But on those occasions when I start to lose my perspective and I begin waking up in the middle of the night with the sweats, wondering what the hell I'm doing and why I'm doing it here, I'll take comfort in the idea that life for me was once not so overwhelming. And that with hard work, I can someday get back to simple and good. To browsing in bookstores. To going to cafés in the middle of a Tuesday.
And hopefully, after a glass of water and some deep breaths, I will calm down and relax. I will ride out my panic attack and go back to bed.
In my dee-luxe apartment in the sky (which, at 12 floors, would make it the tallest building in Yolo County).
-- Steve McFeely, M.A. '96, is now living in Los Angeles where he hopes not only to publish his first novel but land a career in screenwriting.
