This Girl's Life
A little bit about me
Valley Girl is on hiatus for the US holidays. We will resume with new essays in the New Year. Over the next couple of months, I’ll be sending some digests promoting past Valley Girl newsletters to get you properly prepped for next year’s installments. This week’s digest focuses on my own origins and my experiences of growing up in the Valley.
I’m a valley girl1 by origin, not necessarily by birth. I was born in another state, but I moved to the Valley with my parents when I was about three years old. It was a return to an old life though, not a new one. In my family, I’m third generation Valley. So much of our life and story has taken place here.
My paternal grandparents moved to the San Fernando Valley in the 1940s when my late grandfather was offered a job at CBS News. His decision to take this job changed the geographical trajectory of my family for generations, making my late grandmother the first valley girl in my family, but obviously not the last. My father was born and raised here, among the coyotes and the canyons and the surf, a “valley boy,” of which there is no enduring gender stereotype. And after I was born, he told me he couldn’t see me having a childhood anywhere else. Much later, he said he wanted me to have what he had growing up: lots of beach days and pretty light like Italy and long drives in the hills (traffic wasn’t as bad then.)
I know what he means; I did the same thing. Despite living other places in the world, I’m now raising my daughter here—among the palm trees and the coyotes and the canyons. She pauses on the same street corners I did and speaks of snow with the same kind of novelty I did. Rain confuses her and she asks to see the ocean regardless of the season. What I mean is, she is already a valley girl.
Moving home and watching my daughter discover the sensorial experiences of living in Los Angeles reminds me of how deeply my own senses are connected to the Valley. When I think of my own girlhood here, I connect immediately to the way the topography feels: the scorching hot summers, crossing parking lots to find the relief of a car air conditioner (when it worked). I remember the feeling of bathing suits under all my clothes. The days always ended in someone’s pool or by the ocean. The very edge of a pool lounge chair was a teenage confessional; I was told more secrets wrapped in beach towels at night than at any other point in my life.
Such is the life of a valley girl.🌴
The First Valley Girl in My Family
“Are you asking me how I vote or what I believe?”
-my grandmother, Kathleen Beck, when I asked her if she was pro-choice, circa 2001
The Beasts Over the Hill
One afternoon in the 1950s, my grandmother was gardening in the front yard when she saw three men coming up the street with rifles. My grandfather was at work, so she was at home alone with a small child. This was a threatening scenario on its own. And then it got worse.
On the Canyons
“She was wearing brown capris, a white turtle neck sweater and a brown coat with fur tips.”
-A 1969 Los Angeles Times report describing how the body of missing teenager, Marina Elizabeth Habe, was found off Mulholland Drive.
Next week: shop ‘til you drop.
Lowercase “valley girl” to indicate a female-identified or pangender individual who happens to be from or inhabits the San Fernando Valley.