A Moonless Night: An Ode to Diners
It was late one night in my senior year of highschool, the clock was pushing 1 am and my mom and siblings were sitting on the sidelines of a school gym while gaggles of teens like myself did Disney-rated dance moves under bright fluorescent lights. We were on-set in Los Angeles for my first, and only, music video and it was a school night, two hours away from home in San Diego.
By the time we were let go, we made a stop that had become second nature during that short-lived unpredictable season of Hollywood auditions and unpaid background acting gigs — Denny’s. Open 24/7, this diner marked our arrival to Hollywood off the 101 freeway, the sign welcoming my family and I to the city of stars, and on this rare late night, our departure from it. Sitting under its warm lights, time was almost an illusion, life outside quieted down, I tucked into my vegetarian burger, the possibilities were infinite. Like Denny’s, IHOP had also welcomed my family on many occasions, receiving us on the USian side of the border coming from Mexico, and later, to our American life.
Photo Courtesy: Clark St Diner
Living outside of my country’s soil, staying rooted in my Mexican culture has brought me a much needed sense of belonging. But the United States, my second home of 25 years, has also fashioned itself an undeniable piece to my life’s puzzle. It’s the place that’s shaped me from child to woman, carving out pieces of my Spanish language to make room for English with silent vowels and strange idioms, and all that came with it; privilege, assimilation, opportunity, breakfast for dinner.
In part, we assimilated to this new culture with glee, putting our names down at the nearby IHOP on Sunday mornings for pancakes and eggs, or warming our laps with happy meals from the drive-thru. But there was something particularly intoxicating and compelling about the great American diner. We could have breakfast for dinner, milkshakes with fries, hot chocolate with whipped cream for breakfast, there were no rules and anyone could eat whatever they liked. It felt like the epitome of Americanness, and our induction into the uncertainty of our American life to come.
With so many diners, both locally owned and franchised punctuating my city and the entirety of my state of California, they all contained comfortingly unifying characteristics. It didn’t matter if I was at Black Bear Diner in Mount Shasta, at Denny’s in Hollywood, or The Family House of Pancakes in Chula Vista, planted in their leather booths, they all just seemed like different versions of each other. But something about their sameness created stability no matter where I was, or when. Their predictability wasn’t monotonous or humdrum, instead, it charmingly translated to a welcome sense of security.
“ As a teenager, when my angst had me crawling out of my skin, I’d play hooky in high school, often finding myself at a diner. “
As a teenager, when my angst had me crawling out of my skin, I’d play hooky in highschool, often finding myself at a diner. It was there I could simmer down and settle back into myself, melting onto the seat’s plushy leather, feeling like I had some agency ordering a hot chocolate, or a coffee, with a table at my behest, and a world inside my booth, when everything else in my life felt outside of my hands.
Photo: Instagram: @andrea__aliseda
Over the years diners became a home base during road trips, showing a familiar face in the strangeness of an unknown town, welcoming weary travelers from all four directions of the wind, at even the most ungodly hours. The glowing sign of a diner off the temples of the freeways after hours of burning gas and devouring miles became a refuge from behind the wheel; it meant a warm meal and snug seat awaited us — a favored resting point. One sip of the toasted diner coffee from its thick lipped ceramic cup, smooth and dark like a moonless night, and I’d be somewhere I recognized, somewhere safe.
Recently, my mom visited Los Angeles, where my brother and I live, and I insisted we go to Clark Street Diner. Since the beginning of the pandemic, I hadn’t stepped foot in one, and it was the dine-in experience that I had missed the most. I slid into the padded butterscotch colored C-shaped booth as though no time had passed, though its passing has certainly left a mark. Sitting with my family, a dish to suit us all — even my vegan diet — I feasted on the mid-century modern decor, the table tops, the pancakes, wanting to memorialize every detail. It was a sight that like so many others had held me warmly in the strangeness of life, a wink of safety around the lip of a ceramic mug, no matter how uncertain the road ahead would become.