never quite at home here

i think this opinions piece captures something about the city that i've never quite been able to verbalize. its almost visual in its precision.

What I find myself looking for here in L.A. is a sense of dislocation. And what I’ve come to realize is how closely dislocation and a sense of the ordinary are linked. I’ve discovered that I’m looking for a different topography than mountain and ocean, cactus and palm, landmark and icon. I find myself watching instead for the pattern of ordinary life, which is all the more moving to me here because I do not understand its rhythms.

from the nytimes.