If I Go, I'm Goin'

On overstaying your welcome, Sempervirens, Los Angeles, and more Gregory Alan Isakov

I remember running on a curving trail flanked on both sides by redwoods. To my left, the creek languished, shallow and weak, struggling against the crush of the mid-July heat. I licked the salt from my lips, kicked up yellow dust. The trail stretched and sloped long ahead of me. I trained my eyes on the horizon, begged my mind to keep pace with my body.

From behind me then was an enormous pop-crackle-pop, a horrifying, splintering detonation of an unknowable weapon. In the very next instant came the cannon-like boom. I saw nothing. I thought it was gunfire. I thought: something terrible is happening.

When I turned around I saw the body of a behemoth redwood spilling out on the trail behind me, lying where I’d been running just seconds ago.

There is no silence like the silence of the forest after a tree has fallen. And there is possibly no better time to think about how delicate life is, particularly yours. Hearing a tree unroot itself from the earth and hurl its way down a mountainside is like witnessing an act of god. A woman who’d been walking behind me approached the tree from the other side, blocked from my view. We called out to each other from between the downed branches. Are you okay?

We were. I collected myself and continued running. I don’t think I even took a picture; it felt disrespectful somehow. But I couldn’t keep from spiraling down the hole the fallen Sequoia sempervirens had just torn through my mind. I wouldn’t believe that such a profound event could be devoid of meaning, of symbolism of any sort. And if that were true, what did it mean? That timing is everything? Was Nature trying to warn me of something? Why had I been spared?

I never came to a conclusion. Nature consistently commits random acts of violence; humans either get caught in the fray or get lucky. I finished the run and drove home.

* * *

Recently, I’ve been subject to several Realizations. As anyone who’s had to realize stuff knows, this hasn’t exactly been easy or fun. But it’s been necessary for me to properly leave the shit that’s been dimming my light behind.

One of these Realizations is: It’s Time For Me To Go Back To Los Angeles.

It’s been a long time coming. The Bay Area will always be home, but in a series of painful come-to-Jesus moments, I’ve finally taken my head out of the sand and admitted to myself I don’t belong here—not now at least. Not in this current state of body and mind.

For over a year, my apartment, and the city itself, have regularly put me ill at ease. They’ve eaten at my sense of security, disrupted my sleep over months, and consistently made me question my value and my place here. Living here has exposed the parts of me that only surface as a result of mistreatment, misalignment. I feel shaved down to the bone, ugly and raw.

My relationship, which ended about three weeks ago, did the same thing to me. There reaches a point where months of being consistently sidelined, pointedly ignored, rarely considered, and purposefully kept at arm’s length finally breaks you. There comes a day you realize you’ll never actually be cherished here—just meekly accepted at face value, if you’re lucky.

And still, despite the gnawing deep in my gut that told me to go, I stayed. I stayed in the apartment, hoping I’d just get used to loud, inconsiderate neighbors and the trash littering the stairs outside. I stayed in Oakland, despite the constant disillusion I felt walking its cold, empty streets.¹ I stayed in the relationship, even though I knew I was settling for less. I was in the type of denial that should be studied by psychologists. I was willing to ignore my own needs to cater to those of someone who so baldly would never reciprocate. Why?

I’ve always been proud of myself for being able to do hard things. I’d told myself there’s virtue to muscling through, to fighting against the current and flexing your resilience. I’ve been on some “nothing good comes easy” type shit, and I think it’s time to let that narrative die. I haven’t been “resilient;” I’ve been overstaying my welcome.

Maybe the things that feel most intuitive and aligned with us—the things that put us in flow state—are what’s actually worth pursuing. Swimming against the current has only left me shivering and exhausted.

The title of this post is named for a Gregory Alan Isakov song. It starts slow and tender: If I go, I’m goin’ shameless / let my hunger take me there.

It later crescendos:

This house, she’s quite the talker

She creaks and moans, she keeps me up

And the photographs know I’m a liar

They just laugh as I burn her down

And I will go if you ask me to

I will stay if you dare

And if I go, I’m goin’ on fire

Let my anger take me there

---

Throughout life come moments when a tree comes crashing down behind you and the air clears with a snap. An invisible veil, once hanging thick and impenetrable over your eyes, is pierced in an instant, unexpectedly. And when the bereaved hush falls over the forest, you can finally see clearly.

Sempervirens—the coastal redwood—means “always living.” A tree may fall, but its remains will continue to sustain life in the forest for years to come. My gratitude for the Bay and for the time I’ve spent here will always live on. But I can see clearly now. I’ve been fighting against my own rhythm for a long time, trying to march in tune with the places and people that don’t align with who I am.

In many ways, LA has always been the city that I’ve felt most at home in. It embraces my creativity, my curiosity, my comical inability to get a real job. It wraps me in delicious 80-degree days and eternal sunshine. It accepts my vanity. It provides ample opportunities to hang out at the beach without freezing to death (looking at you, SF), go salsa dancing, run trails (I’m not talking about Runyon), eat late-night Korean BBQ, admire sunsets from rooftop bars, and walk freely in a tank top and shorts without feeling ogled at. No one in LA cares about your job or lack thereof. No one in LA cares about AI. (Thank GOD!!!!)

It’s taken me a year to finally accept this understanding. And it’s taken me a year to finally understand what that fallen tree was saying to me. It was a warning: Don’t root down so tightly you reach your breaking point.

Maybe it was also encouragement: Keep moving forward. Clarity is coming.

1. I would like to clarify that I am NOT a conservative Bay Area doomlooper and recognize the many wonderful things about living here. However, the vibes here right now are not it for me!