Guest Column | Kathleen Clary Miller: I Moved Out But Didn’t Move On, A Pasadena Love Affair

The object of my affection is not a person in Los Angeles; It is Los Angeles—or, specifically, a suburb thereof: Pasadena, the city where I was born and raised.

Oh, I’ve been unfaithful.  I confess there were flings.  I convinced myself that what I held in the palm of my hand didn’t fulfill me and took for granted what I would lose in the leaving. My hometown with history—the old houses, antique street lanterns, and stately oak trees— gave the one hundred percent experts say you should in any union, never asking in return.  I was bequeathed a loving family, faithful friends, security, and roots. But like every shortsighted youth, I thought different might be even better.

The temptation for variety was irresistible: There could be handsomer jacarandas than those whose blooms burst from their branches in June on Del Mar, more comforting arms than those of the oak trees all over town.  The scent of magnolia blossoms on Orange Grove wasn’t a powerful enough aphrodisiac to entice me to settle down before playing the field. A rose’s perfume might smell sweeter in some other parade, and sleek streamlined freeways would offer a smoother kick to drive than the aging Arroyo Seco Parkway (aka the Pasadena Freeway). Silly me!  Did I actually imagine I’d find something better looking out there than the view across the Arroyo Canyon from the La Loma Bridge?

Mine was only a half-hearted stab at stepping out. I never strayed too far. My affairs with other towns were but brief dalliances, a little something on the side that didn’t mean anything, really.  I had one toe in and the others out, wanting it both ways, frequently returning to my own bed for weekends and vacations lest my betrayal be noticed.  I played around with surrounding apartments where I thought the grass was greener and the air clearer: Balboa Island, Manhattan Beach, Palms, a time of geographical-relationship confusion before I snapped to my senses and moved back to where the San Gabriel mountains could once again look over my shoulder.

Returned, our romance was rekindled but after a time, I wandered again, lured to San Clemente and later to San Juan Capistrano, a situation in which I stayed too long… for the sake of the children.

After my parents passed and the family home was sold, Pasadena and I made a clean break of it and went our separate ways. I thought it was for the best since my anchor was committed to someone new who altered its appearance but, to quote the sonnet, “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.” I still carried a torch, felt its bones rattle alongside mine whenever I passed it.

Montana sang the siren song that promised something wilder.  At first it was an uninhibited adventure, a sylvan romp during seasons that in the midst of my own midlife one made me feel young and alive again. But after nine grey winters of reality, I saw the light—and it burned bright in Southern California.  I knew I had to return, no matter how fickle my actions appeared.

Pasadena could forgive me my infidelities but couldn’t take me back; the cost now for reconciliation and renewed devotion was far too high. Fallbrook, however, is a good compromise and as close as I can get without paying a hefty price for having sought instant gratification elsewhere instead of sticking it out for the long haul. I am entirely grateful my husband agreed to move me back to the southern half of this golden state.  Like Pasadena, the town is trimmed in massive ancient oak trees, and when I close my eyes and tilt my head to the sky, I can feel the late-afternoon breeze akin to Pasadena’s kiss on my cheek.

But Fallbrook is nonetheless a tease.  Although much nearer to the Crown of the Valley, obviously, than Montana, the traffic I have to battle to get there is a challenge even Romeo and Juliet might not have been able to hurdle.

Still, I sometimes go, and when I do I opt for the route that takes me through the tunnels where I always held my breath and wished for all those destinations that I dreamed were superior, unaware that the best one was right in front of me. From there I burst forth onto and accelerate through the sexy curves of the Arroyo Seco Parkway like a Le Mans racer, never having realized that it was more than thrilling enough to keep me satisfied.  When I step out of the car and onto the sidewalks that I called home for nearly five decades, my feet are on the right ground.

“You are always your first zip code,” a wise friend recently told me when I explained the longing I feel.  It’s reassuring to know that number is my permanent ID no matter where else I collect my mail.

I won’t lie; It’s hard to let go. Although Pasadena has moved forward without me and we are leading separate lives, “just friends”, as they say, the flame still flickers. Your first love, after all, is immutable—frozen in time and right on the street corner where you left it. Perhaps that is as it should be.  Maybe that way, love lost never really is.