Summer. I am used to fleeing in the summers. Off to India. Off to the heat and pollution, the traffic, afternoons spent at cottage industries or the Ashoka or at home doing nothing. Reading a novel every two days. Dropping weight despite afternoon samosas or chaat or other things bought off the street. The same stories told and retold. The kind of summer lethargy and heat that sticks to your skin and balks at any sentiment of immediacy. The entire third world is like this, I've realized. India is beginning to not be like this and that's sad.

But I am here. Morning yoga and twists. Summer salads and diagonally sliced squash and peppers to throw on the grill in the evening. Sometimes asparagus. Martinis with muddled kumquats. Three-hour thursday meals at restaurants that act French and offer good food and deplorable service.

Driving towards LA from Orange Country the other day, the sun was like a soft egg yolk, about to break into the smog and still air of the early evening, illuminating the cityscape so that it looked one-dimensional and drawn by a child. A futuristic view of the city, drawn by a six-year old, shiny opaque glass muted and glowing against purple hills. I almost veered off the freeway looking at it. It was a different kind of familiarity. Not the familiarity that comes from looking at your own city in a different way, but the recollection of the dream I've had since I was seven. That I am driving towards a flat, one-dimensional city, nestled in hills, futuristic and yet carrying that kind of juvenile charm, a drawing made by a kindergartener. I was driving towards the city in my dreams. Just as I do, in that dream. That I've had since I was seven. And I beathed a sigh of relief. I am here, I breathed. I am just where I am supposed to be.