Secret Royalty On Tour

I’m currently staying in the Arts District in Los Angeles, a place that feels, on the surface, like a reflection of creativity and forward momentum.

And yet, within a few blocks you are in Skid Row.

I didn’t actually know this geography til I passed a gleaming converted warehouse and walked straight into a cardboard home, with two distressed men shouting at me.

The shift is so abrupt it almost feels like stepping through a tear in the fabric – moving from something curated to something confronting, from possibility to a far more complex and unresolved reality.

What stays with me is not just the contrast, but the proximity. These two worlds exist side by side, without buffer, without distance, quietly challenging everything we think we know about how solid the ground beneath us really is.

There’s a commonly held notion that many people are only a couple of bad decisions – or moments of bad luck – away from real hardship. In most contexts, it remains an abstract thought.

Here, it doesn’t.

It becomes visible in a way that is difficult to ignore, and even harder to look away from once you’ve seen it up close.

It’s a reminder that the line between security and vulnerability may be far thinner – and far closer – than we’re comfortable acknowledging.

Hardship is only ever two blocks away.