I came from Armenia at the age of 12 and grew up in Hollywood, before it was Little Armenia. While going to Le Conte Jr High, I would try to make hair “feather” like Farrah Fawcett’s, but it stayed curly. The community was new and there was only one store, Hagop’s, on Fountain Ave. The church on Alexandria was brand new and parties were held in its basement, as this was way before the now ubiquitous banquet halls. It was in this environment of newness for the community that after graduating from Hollywood High, I applied and got into UCLA.
Of course I wanted to go and live on campus like all the rest of my friends and of course it was out of the question. In fact, driving a car all the way to the ocean, “minchev ovgyanosner” was out of the question too. So, everyday, I took the bus from Hollywood to UCLA. There were two number two’s, one that went all the way to PCH and another that left you right in front of the Bel Aire Hotel, tantalizingly close but too far from my destination. There, along with housekeepers headed to mansions in Beverly Hills and Malibu, I would wait for the correct bus to take me to UCLA.
I graduated with a degree in Biology and Political Science in 1987 and of course, had to then do something practical. My dream of becoming a writer and a journalist were pure “xentutyun” and were not given a second thought. “Anank pan bedke sorvis ki merin mernelen verch chi mdadzenk ki inch bidi ulla.” You have to study something that keeps us from worrying after we are dead. So, I went to UCLA School of Dentistry from which I graduated in 1991.
On a lark, I went to a writing class at Venice’s Beyond Baroque with a friend sometime in 1996. The teacher, Venice Poet Laureate Philomene Long, asked us to write our earliest memories as an exercise. After we read in class, she asked how long I’d been writing and so it started. I took class after class, eventually becoming part of a writers’ group with Philomene. The writers I met became lifelong friends and I continued to write all the way through my brother’s long illness and death. Somehow, though, this was a corner of my life that stayed protected and isolated. My own private Idaho, I suppose. It was my secret life and until now, I did not have the courage to embrace it fully.
My fellow writers would urge me to send, but I did not. Yet, the thought would not leave me. “This is your community,” Philomene Long would say. “Write to the Armenian Americans, this is your home,” she’d say. Make your start, own it and the rest will take care of itself. It took a long, long time for me to follow her advice--I just did not dare. Years of making practical choices, I guess. It was not until writing the three eulogies for my parents and my aunt that something clicked. People came up to me and asked for copies. My stories were their stores. So, there you have it. Thanks to St. Peter’s, Fr. Vazken and my husband Mark, I find myself surrounded by my community and more importantly, have finally found the courage to write and tell my story to my “home”. It seems particularly poignant and important now, because I want to make sure that my son, Alek, knows the giants that he comes from. Ureink, ur yegank yev inch yeghank. Where we were, where we came to and what we became.
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