Spring is not a good time to leave Los Angeles, but that is what I am doing.

Every flowering bush in West LA is blooming. The sidewalks are strewn with petals. Pink and red azaleas spill over flower beds and walls. Even the mystical wisteria vines are draped with lavender buds.

Neighborhood yards are filled with ice plant blossoms as bright as neon. The silver roses were the first to bloom in the yard I refer to as the “Rose Garden West.” Soon the Rose Garden will be filled with an array of roses.

In Brentwood, the dark, scrawny limbs of coral trees are bursting forth with their exuberant orangey-red flowers. Bougainville vines in electric blossoms of purple, orange, and pink are every where you turn in this city. They own the roofs and walls of homes and restaurants.

There should be an official Los Angeles parade in honor of each new season because Mother Nature loves to show off in this city. She spreads her bounty across this city as generously as Cousin Anne spreads Duke Mayonnaise on a slice of bread.

So I am leaving. We fly home tomorrow. Leaving Los Angeles always feels like I am being whisked away too soon from the party.

You see, my Supervisor and I a are bi-coastal couple. We are also an inter-racial faux marriage. I am a Southerner from Shuffletown and he is an Angeleno.

This lifestyle means that I often feel like I left a stove on three thousand miles away.

I am a day away from exiting this sun-drenched city and I am sure going to miss this odd and hypnotic place and the people who live there.

Back home, in Shuffletown, the red tulip bulbs I planted last winter should be peeking out of the finally unfrozen ground. I can’t wait to get my hands in the dirt of my patio and front yard. But I will never quite shake the dust of LA from my hair.