Before moving to LA my partner and I visited. We had plans to leave days before but we’re delayed by a blizzard that hit NYC. Just months before Trump had been sworn in and the future felt uncertain. The Getty Center was one of the first places we visited (after the beach). Los Angeles itself was so much slower than New York. I’d felt lighter, warmer (in temperature and tone), and slower. Slower was something I desperately needed. We didn’t know at the time how LA would stick in our minds. We certainly had no idea that by Thanksgiving the fates would have brought us here. It was the biggest risk to leave the city we both loved and fought to thrive in. My birthplace and heritage. But with great risk came great reward and now my chosen home feels more like me than I could have ever imagined.