My husband and I met in Los Angeles and were ready to move out of the city as it had become unbearable with the traffic, pollution, crowding and cost to buy a decent home. You know it’s time to go when they have to have parking attendants/chaos controllers for the parking lot at your local Trader Joe’s to prevent fights and accidents. I didn’t want to fight over parking rights I just wanted to buy a Kombucha. Please.
Where to? We were not alone in this line of thinking of wanting to escape Los Angeles and some of my girlfriends had been busy filing our questionnaires on websites like Find Your Spot where you put in your preferences for climate, activities, religion, landscape, education, sport, employment etc and their software generates the top 10 places based on your wants and needs. However, I don’t trust a computer for life advise. A computer doesn’t have a soul and isn’t it your spirit that tells you when you are in the right place? It’s a feeling you get like when you walk into a house or meet someone and just instantly like them or not.
We decided to check out a few places so we went to Memphis, Nashville, Portland, Ojai, Santa Barbara, Petaluma, Guerneville and Palm Springs. We both liked Memphis much more than Nashville and not just because Elvis Presley is from Memphis. Memphis has a beautiful downtown, gorgeous victorian architecture, cool art scene, and the church of soul king Al Green. Portland also known as the city of roses is really green with over 30 percent of the city being trees, it is a great place to be in the summertime. After the fourth person mentioned to me they had a light therapy lamp for seasonal affective disorder(SAD) due to the lack of sunshine, I quickly envisioned myself poolside in sunny california far far away from those heavy grey skies
The first time my husband took me to Palm Springs I was blown away. Why hadn’t I been here earlier?! I had been 2 hours away in Los Angeles for 9 years without visiting. It is so stunningly beautiful with the perfect blend of nature and culture. Some small towns are charming but I would be bored within a few weeks and a large city is overwhelming and lacking of community. Here in Palm Springs there is plenty to do, shopping, restaurants, arts, events but I can drive into downtown in 5 minutes and park right outside where I want to go. There is no parking attendant here at Trader Joe’s because there are plenty of spots for your car !! And people are smiling because they don’t see you as a threat to their potential car spot. They are also smiling because they aren’t in Oregon sitting next to a light energy lamp, the sun is actually shining for real.
The Iconic photo “Poolside Gossip” by photographer Slim Aarons is the epitome of the Palm Springs lifestyle. Leisure by the pool with a friend in a beautifully designed home, with the Majestic mysterious mountains in the background and of course Yellow, the Official color of Palm Springs that you see reflected everywhere from the design to the Bright Sun.
Five minutes from my house I can hike in the wilderness amongst giant boulders, vast open spaces, next to running streams shaded by Giant Palm trees or put on a silk caftan and go have brunch at the Azucar Restaurant at La Serena Villas. Nature and Glamour.
Palm Springs is the modernism capital of America with more mid century modern architecture here than anywhere else. Walking the neighborhood means oohing and aaahing every few steps and posting all the time on instagram. The beauty is all around us with the San Jacinto mountains, palm trees and good design.
We moved here because whenever we came we couldn’t stop smiling and when we would have to leave to go back to Los Angeles our hearts sank. I worked it out all by myself without the help of a computer program that This Was My Spot(Palm Spring’s didn’t even make it on the list stupid program). We bought a Mid Century Condo by famed architect Donald Wexler, packed up and moved with no idea what we were going to do for work or how we were going to support ourselves. Luckily we are both impulsive and don’t think things through or we may have rationalized our way out of it. Fortunately good luck found us and opportunities unfolded to anchor us firmly into place or as my husband Steve likes to say ”Nature rewards courage”
Keep following along to see our Palm Springs Journey here at Palm Springs Fabulous
What a great story! So full of soul and authenticity. Exactly our kind of energy. You wear Palm Springs well. Welcome.
F A B U L O U S !