Venice, CA: A Great Big Small World

Our Travel Columnist discovers that time is a memoirist's ===

Photo by Aaron Lalaian

In February, I was in Southern California wrapping up my mini book tour. The events had taken us from San Diego’s La Playa Books where I had my first bookstore talk in late January, to the Southern California Writers’ Conference in mid February. In between those two events I did ten other slideshows and talks, mostly solo, but a couple with Russel, like the one at the lovely Oceanside Yacht Club.

That Monday, with the busy Writers’ Conference weekend wrapped, we packed our stuff back into our rental car and drove north on Hwy. 1 through the rain. When time allows, we like taking the slow route up along our favorite beach towns, like Dana Point. We were enroute to my favorite beach town—aka my old hometown—Venice, California. I had a bookstore signing lined up midweek, but until then we had a couple of days to simply relax, act like tourists, and visit old friends. We had lunch on the road and, due to the rain and a stop at Trader Joe’s for key supplies like wine and salad, we didn’t get to Venice until late in the afternoon.

I had texted ahead, so when we pulled up at the cozy and comfy 5-star Airbnb cottage known as The Venice Love Lodge our dear friend Aaron was out front, ready to move his work truck out of the prime parking spot for us. What a guy! Aaron’s mom is my dear friend Nancy, so I’ve known him since before he was born. And for a few years in the 1980s, the three of us were all roommates—I even got to pick him up from preschool and kindergarten a few times.  He was an adorable boy who had grown into a pretty darned adorable man, and we always look forward to seeing him and his wife Monica. We were at their wedding back in 2011—on the beach at Venice, of course!—so we’ve known Monica for quite a while now too.

The two met in Venice (but of course!) where she was on vacation, and she never really went home after that, and haven’t been apart much since then. The couple travel a lot, recently going to Argentina to see her family. The rest of the time, they live/work (they do freelance video editing and key grip/props for film/tv) in their cool hand-crafted apartment in the lush backyard of their place just off Lincoln Blvd (aka Hwy 1). The two of them own and keep up and run the Love Lodge and I highly recommend it for one or two people (or a very small family who don’t mind rooming together snugly). If you plan to visit Venice this year, and want to support a long-time local family, not some big conglomerate, check out The Venice Love Lodge on Airbnb.

The rain kept us inside the snug and cozy cottage on Monday night and Tuesday morning, but by lunchtime it was dry enough to walk the couple of blocks over to Lincoln Blvd to get the west coast’s best cheesesteak sandwich at The Great Western Steak & Hoagie Co. where the sign still declares: “3000 MILES TO PHILADELPHIA, EAT HERE.” Sometimes you have to heed the signs in life, and save the avocado toast for another day.

That night it was dry enough to accompany my friend Nancy to a small birthday party in the charming nearby Venice walk-street house (houses that face onto walking paths and only have car access on the alleys). Her friends welcomed me into their funky-chic house where a dozen people played games, sipped and munched, sang and played guitars—it was like being in my old house in the Venice Canals in 1970.

The sun was out on Wednesday the 21st, so we met up with Nancy and walked to the beach to have breakfast at the famous Sidewalk Cafe, right on the boardwalk. Then Nancy went off to teach Tai Chi, and Russel opted to try and find elusive boat parts down in Marina Del Rey. So I got to simply hang out on my own, which was perfect. I moseyed around Venice, following familiar paths past the library and the post office, taking in the familiar sights. I love walking along ever-hip Abbott Kinney Blvd, looking in the windows at everything from trendy clothes to original artwork, from hip sneakers to designer sunglasses. There’s something eerie and yet comforting about wandering streets that you walked every day as a kid—even once they are wildly gentrified—I kept expecting to run into a grammar school friend.

My feet were aching by the time I headed back toward my temporary home. The sky was blue and I couldn’t face getting an Uber or Lyft, so I just kept walking. There’s always something new to see in Venice, even when you are strolling down a walk-street you’ve traversed a hundred times. The wide range of architectural styles hidden along these leaf-lined pathways is enough to keep your eyes and mind ever so busy, and the music that leaks out of each semi-hidden abode mixes with birdsong to create the perfect score.

I ended up at Lincoln Blvd a few blocks too far south and walked up loud and busy boulevard, passing the old Fox Venice movie theater, the same venue where I saw dozens of great films over the years, not just as a little kid, but later on, in my twenties, as a much bigger kid. In business since 1951, the theater had closed down, then reopened, closed again, been in operation for a while as an indoor swap meet, but it was clearly closed again, boarded up, perhaps for good.

Aaron was tidying up the side yard of the Love Lodge when I arrived back, and when I poked my head out the side door,  I was greeted by what seemed to be half a dozen Chihuahuas but was really just two. He scooped the dogs up and the two of us visited for a while, talking about boats, RVs, and our life plans for travel and adventure. He showed me a few projects and described some future projects. I’d known Aaron’s dad pretty well, in addition to knowing Nancy since forever, and it is such a joy to see the two of them melded into this one sweet, smiling, getting-to-be-middle-aged person. Aaron’s late father was a great guy, far from perfect, but a good man (Nancy says she picked a great dad not a great husband). And the plain little house Nancy found, which Aaron has totally fixed up and then added on to, is pretty righteous, as we used to say in the Canals.

Russel got back in time for us to dine, then clean up and get dressed before Nancy came to pick us up for my book-signing at Small World Books (SWB) on the Venice Boardwalk. I have loved this bookstore for as long as I can remember, often haunting the stacks during my years spent waiting tables (and taking acting classes and auditioning) when I lived in Venice for the second time, as an adult. Visiting the boardwalk always brings up a beach load of memories for this Venice kid, images of dance classes in the old rec center, hunting glass bottles for the depot nickels with my brothers, and hanging out with friends when we played hooky from Westminster Elementary. Walking over to the bookstore as an adult, clutching a copy of my memoir in one hand, had me “flashing heavy,” as we said in the sixties.

I arrived at the bookstore with my entourage—Russel, Nancy, Aaron and Monica, and others, only to find another old friend already waiting in the store for the event. More old friends soon arrived for the reading and the bookstore staff pulled out all the stops with plenty of excellent (organic) wine and chilled water on hand, plus platters of delicious guacamole and fresh tortilla chips. The reading went well, though I was overcome with emotion at actually finding myself in that “full-circle moment.” I explained between readings how the Desiderata had hung on the wall of every home I could recall, from my childhood home in Venice to my small boat in Baja.

Out on the boardwalk, we all said good night and goodbye. We were heading home to the Love Shack. Monica was going home too, as she had an early project the next day. Aaron was off to some night-time Venice adventure, so I hugged him tight and we thanked him again for hosting us. What a joy to know such a good man, and to be surrounded by a loving crowd of such faithful friends.

The next morning it was time to wave farewell to SoCal and to my book tour, and say au revoir to my beloved Venice, once more. I know we’ll keep coming back, again and again.

We highly recommend Jennifer’s Substack, and you can buy her book here.