I meant to write this post last month, but… life got in the way.

So, one year ago (and a few weeks) our family made the move back to Ohio from Los Angeles. It’s been a whole year? Damn. Time truly does fly. At supersonic speeds these days.

Did we make the right decision? The verdict: we’re happy and we’re sad… Bittersweet is the term, I believe.

We really miss L.A. We talk about it at least once a week. We miss friends, activities, restaurants, and the whole vibe of the place. It’s everyone’s favorite past time to deride L.A. as a culture-less, soulless wasteland but, well… it’s not.

And, we also like living here. Back with family and old friends. We’ve got a big house with great schools nearby. We’re still doing fun activities but we’re eating waaaay too much Midwestern food. Oy.

I will say that the move helped make 2008 a very bad year. For me, and L.A. Mommy. The kids seemed to handle it all in stride. But then, they didn’t have to move a washing machine all by themselves. It was physically tough to spend weeks and weeks packing up, moving across the country, unpacking into an apartment, packing back up, and moving into a house. All within 6 months. And it was mentally tough to tear myself away from that life of the past 15 years - more than a third of my whole life and a good chunk of my adult life…

Days, weeks, and months are simply missing from my memory. I’m sure the beer didn’t help matters any. Well, it did…

It seems like my four day trip across 9 states was years ago. And I remember it like it was yesterday. I can “feel” that trip in my bones. It was very hard to do. And it was cathartic.
But I’m glad I did it. L.A. Mommy took the girls on a plane ride and five hours later, they landed in Ohio. My journey was several days in a car, driving away from my city I had called home. And L.A. was my home. I remember how homesick I would get when we would leave to visit family for the holidays.

I was also driving on the same highways I had used to move to Los Angeles all those years ago. I had decided I wanted to move to Hollywood when I was in my 20’s and L.A. Mommy decided to go with me. I had never even visited and had never been West of Indiana before we packed up and moved to sunny California. And what seemed like a lifetime later… I was putting miles between me and my adopted home. For good.

One of the things I wanted to share was the medicine I had to take to make it through this tough journey. Back when I was still packing, I had asked people for music recommendations. I needed driving music to be my soundtrack for the long haul across the country.

Not that anyone really cares, I’m sure, but that music did help, and I wanted to put a few selections on this blog. In case anyone else ever has to make that trip. It was not an easy time and I haven’t been able to even think about listening to those songs again. But now that I work from home, and I listen to my desktop iTunes, I keep hearing a lot those songs every once in a while. And I wanted to share a small part of that soundtrack.

Most of these tunes were suggestions from a wise musical afficianado and they make for some meditative driving music. Brian Braiker, a real mister nice guy, emailed me a ton of great suggestions. I was scouring iTunes and furiously buying up quite a few of the songs he listed.

What came together was a total of about 10 burned CDs that I probably listened to at least 3 whole times as I was driving through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and about 42 other states to get to Ohio. But my most special mix was one I had called “Driving Away from L.A.”

It was the first disc I put in, once we were clear of the afternoon traffic, and it went a little something like this:

• “Goin’ Back to Cali” - L.L. Cool James

• “Hollywood Squares” - Bootsy Collins

• “California” - Joni Mitchell

• “California Dreamin’” - Eddie Hazel

• “L.A. Woman” - The Doors

• “Ventura Highway (Deepsky’s Blizzard in L.A. Remix)” - America

• “California Soul” - Marlena Shaw

• “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” - Billy Joel

• “California Stars” - Billy Bragg & Wilco

• “Things’ So Bad in California” - L.C. Good Rockin’ Robinson

• “California Girl” - Tristan Prettyman

• “West Coast Blues” - Wes Montgomery

• “California” - Rufus Wainwright

• “Join Me in L.A.” - Warren Zevon

• “Free Fallin’” - Tom Petty

• “California” - Sarah Slean

• “Screenwriter’s Blues” - Soul Coughing

• “Hollywood (Africa)” - Red Hot Chili Peppers

• “L.A. Song” - Deconstruction

• “I Love L.A. ” - Randy Newman

Thanks again to Slarkpope and everyone else who sent out wonderful suggestions to get me through a very tough time in my life.