I never planned to live in the San Fernando Valley.

And yet, I recently passed my 10th anniversary of living in a nicely rent-controlled 1963 apartment in Valley Village. How did I learn to love the valley? (Or, if not love, at least accept. . .)

How did this happen? In 2011, I sold a condominium in Palm Springs, bored with the desert and longing for a return to urban adventures. With the real estate closing imminent and a deal for a classic Koreatown apartment falling apart, I needed a place to land. Quickly.

How it Came to Be

I had a friend who lived in Valley Village (VV), and he responded to my SOS on Facebook. A couple of days later, I looked at the empty apartment in his building and figured it would be fine as a temporary home and signed the lease.

Despite not knowing much of anything about the neighborhood, there were some major advantages: the rent, first of all, was $300 less than the place in Koreatown, and that’s even before factoring in the extra I’d have to pay for parking. So, in effect, $400 cheaper since parking was included in VV.

Amenities: an all electric 1960s joint, but at least there was a dishwasher, disposal, AC. A pool, even if it was right outside my sliders (note to any reader: NEVER rent right next to the pool, if you value quiet).

At the time I was enthralled with LA’s burgeoning public transit system and this VV apartment was right around the corner from a main artery stop (the Orange Line Rapid Bus, now also called the G Line).

There were other advantages either in walking distance or a short bike ride or drive: a Gold’s Gym, a Public Library, two Parks, two major groceries and a few smaller markets, Rite Aid, Starbucks, a yoga studio (since closed, now another gym), many restaurants, even gay bars and a OMG! — a gay bathhouse.

In a nutshell, probably the most convenient neighborhood I’ve ever lived in.

And yet, I was not happy there.

The Valley is Like Another City Entirely

The line of hills (ancient crumbling mountains, really) that separate the LA Basin from the San Fernando Valley are more than just a physical barrier. They are also a psychological one.

For instance, say I’m 8 miles away from my nearest friend (which is actually true) on the other side of the hill in Hollywood. Now let’s imagine I lived in Los Feliz, and my nearest friend is also 8 miles away but in Carthay Square (near La Cienega/Olympic). I’d call that “across town,” but the former is “over the hill.”

The geographic barrier makes it seem qualitatively different even though the actual distance is about the same.

For Angelenos, it’s a much heavier lift to “go over the hill to the valley (and vice versa)” than it is to “drive across town.”

So back to my premise of it being a separate city entirely, even though that is likely more a perception than reality.

Mourning Being Priced Out of Silver Lake as Hyperion ex-Royalty

During this period of discontent, I’d look at listings in the general Silver Lake-Los Feliz area (my favorite part of LA and where I lived previously for many years) and to my chagrin rent prices just kept rising. Eventually prices in those neighborhoods went so high that I, like so many others, was priced out of where I lived rather simply as a callow twentysomething.

How could this be? I was proud that I’d lived in what was a legendary gay neighborhood and felt very much part of it for so long. And then I moved away, and tried to move back, and it wasn’t happening. As another friend said, “I couldn’t get LA back.”

He meant, of course, the LA he knew. Places change, people change. Another friend asked, “Why do you want to move to Silver Lake? It’s not like the place you remember from the 80s or 90s.” He was right, too. It is different. Different people, different buildings, an entirely different vibe. So gentrified. So “straight.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with “straight” — if you’re straight.)

It was a highly bohemian area but now the bohemians can’t really afford it. So what’s left, then? A veneer of past coolness?

Perhaps that’s all an illusion and folks that lived in Silver Lake in the 1950s or 60s lamented what it had become by the time I arrived in the 80s. We always remember the places where we were the happiest. And I realized that was what I was chasing.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

For the longest time my mother had this cheesy little plaque above the doorway in their kitchen that had some cute flowers and the legend “Bloom Where You Are Planted.”

I had internalized that as a kid and always thought it was good advice. And I was trying, trying my hardest, to like the Valley, to feel at home, to try and make friends that were closer than 8 miles.

Which happened — over the course of 10 years, many other people I knew got “priced out” of where they had been living in the LA Basin and also moved to Valley areas. And yet it still seemed “off” to me.

I realized that I had my identity all wrapped up in what my personal definition of Los Angeles was – which was where I was originally “plunked,” right there in Echo Park-Silver Lake, my first impression, if you will, which quickly became my lasting definition.

Which is, of course, subjective and not based on anything other than my own youthful experience.

Looking at My Environment with Different Eyes

So I realized I had better learn acceptance around my circumstances. What I had was valuable and was something people would kill for – an under-market and rent controlled apartment in a great and hugely convenient neighborhood.

I saw the advantages of all that convenience and other things I came to appreciate: less traffic, wider streets, flat bike lanes, the diversity I loved about LA, quirky locations, unique businesses.

Living with a multitude of schools that made mid-afternoon traffic more of a nightmare than was usual even for LA. Getting used to all the kids around. They’re the future, right? Better get used to it.

Now it’s an easy truce. I’ve lived here longer than any place in my entire life. It’s my neighborhood, now. And I’m grateful. Maybe I am learning to love the valley – most days, anyway.