We drove up a steep hill in our food truck full of donuts to see our new house in Glassell Park for the first time. But we were not prepared for the stress of that trip up the slope. Who knew there were pockets of treacherous roads just east of Highway 2?
This was a different level of driving stress than we had ever encountered on the roads of New York City or New Jersey. There people whizzed by while holding horns. Or the wrong lane would take you to a different state. But here in Los Angeles, every turn we took led to a new danger: a blind curve with a Tesla speeding down the other side; a gardener's van with tools protruding from it parked on the side but still taking up half the road; low branches hitting the top of the truck and then coming back to hit us in the rear. Wait, this street has two lanes?
I held on to the door, mouth tight, barely breathing. When we finally parked the bright blue donut truck in our new driveway, my husband turned to me and said, “Oh, man, my butt was tight that whole time.”
From Jersey City to Los Angeles. That was the trip I took with Dan, my husband of six years, with his mini donut catering truck as our moving vehicle. We would park and leave all our belongings alone overnight. I wondered if the truck would make our mattresses and towels smell like Dan did when he came home from work: the greasy sweetness of fried dough and powdered sugar. But the smells didn't have much time to assimilate. We did it quickly.
October 2020 didn't seem like the time to mess around with our stuff in tow, wrapped in a dazzling wrapper of (I'll call it cerulean) showered with sprinkles and the words “Glazed & Confused” plastered around a big pink donut. .
Our first days here were spent in late October in 92 degree weather (welcome to Los Angeles!) breaking down boxes in the sun. Our house was taking center stage, not just the house, but the place.
After 12 years of being in New York City, I felt unmoored. I didn't immediately realize that the life I was building there was temporary. Although I was born, raised and educated in Southern California, I felt like I had to go to that hectic place to find myself. What I found was pain and stress and a scruffy, blue-eyed Italian from North Jersey.
After three years together, we got married in Santa Monica, showing our loved ones that Southern California was our home base, even though I still didn't understand it. California also inspired our next chapter. While on our honeymoon in Sonoma, we saw a stand at a farmers market that made bite-sized hot donuts to order. It sparked an idea in Dan. My home state witnessed the most important moments of our lives together.
But after the wedding, we returned to where we lived and I remembered my failures. I moved to New York after college to pursue a career in writing only when my goals coincided with the financial crisis of 2008. Then, just a year later, my sister died from complications of Hodgkin's lymphoma. The days there felt dull and routine, as if life was playing in black and white before Oz.
While I was changing careers and starting a psychotherapy practice, Dan was growing tired of the 80-hour work weeks managing the Manhattan Cold Stone franchises. He sought to build a business on his own terms. He conceived of a food truck catering company that would serve those little donuts, fresh and hot on a tray covered with bits in combinations called S'mores or S'mores or S'mores Pretzel. He was born Glazed & Confused.
As Dan's business grew, mine failed. The depression that plagued me as a teenager (where it is so impossible to imagine having a future that you give up creating one) had returned in a new adult form. As I looked at Dan's truck, I felt the void in the center of that pink donut staring back at me and saying, “There's a piece missing.” I realized that my life in New York was Limbo, a suspended place and a time marked by loss.
So I started planting the seed. What if we moved to Los Angeles?
I wasn't sure it would work. As a therapist, I know that leaving a place does not leave your struggles behind. But if my fight was to belong and move forward in building a life, then I couldn't deny where I am rooted and where I want to build. As soon as we crossed into California, I was relieved to succumb to the magnetic pull of home. My hunch was correct. We needed to be here and this truck had brought us.
But now, would Dan feel unbound? He had been born, raised and educated on the East Coast. What if he had condemned him to what I had endured in the East?
In a marriage, it can be easy to forget our different emotional realities. Just to be safe, I covered Dan in my community, my parents, my school friends, and my cousins, who hugged him. I researched the best pizzas and bagels in Los Angeles and frequented Pizzeria Sei, Shins, and Belle's Bagels so he wouldn't feel deprived of his precious comforts. Turns out L.A. pizza and bagels can win over a Jersey boy.
As I felt joy looking out the window at the tips of the palm trees at Dodger Stadium and the US Bank building, I saw him captivated by the light and color of our hills and sky. Every morning I caught him looking out the window at the glow of Highway 2. I could see him feeling the pride I feel in Los Angeles.
Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve this feeling of satisfaction. But also, perhaps, he had already been through enough. After all, it wasn't easy: It took a 3,000-mile, 13-year detour to get on the right path, all thanks to a cerulean donut truck covered in sparks.
The author is a writer and therapist who writes screenplays, nonfiction narratives, and critical essays. He was a finalist for the 2023 screenplay competition at the Austin Film Festival. He lives in Glassell Park. She is on Instagram: @pallaviyetur
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