Letter From L.A.

In late November 1860, 10 years after statehood and the Gold Rush, botanist William Brewer, an Easterner, arrived in Los Angeles with the California Geological Survey to travel the state of California and study its natural resources.

Look to the heavens on a cloudless, moon-free night: That expanse of stars has sparked the biggest thoughts the human brain can think. How strange to learn that, in galactic terms, we see only over our backyard fence.

Commencement is a rare moment that is both end and beginning. The day seems stretched by its gravity, its hours elongated by ceremony. But the rite, a tenuous instant in time, passes. It doesn’t last long.

The last gift of a Jesuit may be one given after he dies.

A flight east from Los Angeles will usually cross, miles above at a cool altitude, the Mojave Desert. From on high, its dusty, flaky expanse looks as if every ounce of water has been leeched out, leaving behind dry, emptied rivulets.

Like other Los Angeles landmarks — Hollywood, the freeways — LAX is a symbol of transience.