When I moved home to Los Angeles, I found a city in what I thought was the throes of an identity crisis. There seemed to be so much more money around. Shiny office buildings and luxury apartments populated corners of my childhood. A new Apple campus with Bay Area staples like Ike’s and Philz replaced the lot where I learned to ride a skateboard. My parents’ middle-class neighborhood wasn’t really that anymore; Teslas and BMWs filled driveways while a noticeably proprietary generation of tech workers bought homes for jaw-dropping prices. At the same time, I watched as those without struggled to maintain a foothold, many turned out onto the streets to fight for scraps. I felt myself hardening against my city, thinking it lost, out of reach, different. I found it harder to justify living here, and the place I had full heartedly defended at every opportunity started to lag behind my lofty images of it.

But then, as I started to settle in, slow down and pay attention, the city reintroduced itself. I’d like to say it was one thing that brought me back to LA, but I don’t think that’s the case. It was a smile, hand shake and enthusiastic “feliz Navidad” from the guy next to me in line at the Northgate Market carniceria, it was watching the world cup on my Vietnamese barber’s TV with a half cut head of hair because the game had just gotten good, it was admiring classic cars in front of Hinano Café and being able to point out their owners by “Hecho in Venice” t-shirts, it was the perfect bite of a mango with the right amounts of salt, lime and Chamoy, it was an al-pastor taco at a plastic table in a parking lot after a few beers. It was the small things, all together; the way that the deepest of loves develop.

This city has changed. But in a place known for its transience, maybe that’s how it should be. What remains, and what has remained through every boom and bust, is the character of a place that is impossible to define. LA is everything, all at once; faded dreams and hard work, desperation and luxury, rebellious and dictatorial. It’s a place of humanity, vital and unapologetically itself. I love it, and I hope this series will show you why.