someone comes to town, someone leaves town
I just dropped off my friends Emily and Eddie at the train station. They are moving back to Milwaukee. They were the first friends I made in Portland, after we went to a viewing for the same apartment, which they ended up taking, on their very first day in town. Meanwhile, the car they'd driven out here died and they sold it to a mechanic's shop; they shivered through the winter in their unheated apartment; they got crummy jobs at PDX and then slightly less crummy jobs at a bakery downtown; they had to sell the car and do without another, and Eddie had to sell his drum kit; and they figured out, at all of 22 years old, what they want to do with the next few years of their lives - start his own studio; get her master's in art history - and the first step was moving back to the Midwest.
It makes me very happy that their brief time in Portland acted as such a crucible to show them the right path for their futures, but I'm going to miss them a lot. On Tuesday I helped them take a shitload of boxes to the post office, and took them out to dinner; they gave me a table, so I finally have something to occupy the "reserved for table/desk" corner of my living room. Being artists, they had drawn all over it, and today, when I went to pick up them and the rest of their stuff, they gave me a present: some paint pens to keep drawing on the table. I love their art. I'm really happy to have gotten their table. It's a little window into their time here. I have a standing invitation to visit Milwaukee and go out for the best tostadas in America.
Last night, I went to a jazz night at the Blue Monk up on Belmont. I'd learned that a guy named Drew Shoals with whom I'd gone to college was back in Portland after graduation and doing very well for himself as a jazz/funk/fusion drummer, so I checked out the next show he had coming up. We caught up during the band's break. He's the same age as Emily and Eddie, and he's making a living doing what he loves. Portland's too small for his ambitions, so he'll be off to New York, most likely, in the next few years, having grown up here.
I commented to the_drifter while we were hanging out the other day that Portland seems to be a great place to come find yourself. It nurtures some and doles out tough love to others. You can stare out at the rain and stare into yourself. Yesterday at Palio, I was reading one of the MSS I've got checked out from $PDXLitMag for review, and a phrase in a story about a non-traditional college student sent this jolt of excitement through me: It's time! It's time to go back to school! I feel like law school is the right place to go next - I'm nervous about the debt, and reluctant to give up the easy, relaxed lifestyle I have now, but I'm ready. And in 2009, I intend to return to Portland.
I walked home from Palio, looking up a street lined with tall, thick old trees. They had been planted there intentionally, mindfully, as saplings, when the dream of Ladd's Addition was carried out. 115 years later, the trees are huge and strong, and they shade one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Portland.
Growth takes time. Great things happen slowly. Look inward. You will know what to do.
It makes me very happy that their brief time in Portland acted as such a crucible to show them the right path for their futures, but I'm going to miss them a lot. On Tuesday I helped them take a shitload of boxes to the post office, and took them out to dinner; they gave me a table, so I finally have something to occupy the "reserved for table/desk" corner of my living room. Being artists, they had drawn all over it, and today, when I went to pick up them and the rest of their stuff, they gave me a present: some paint pens to keep drawing on the table. I love their art. I'm really happy to have gotten their table. It's a little window into their time here. I have a standing invitation to visit Milwaukee and go out for the best tostadas in America.
Last night, I went to a jazz night at the Blue Monk up on Belmont. I'd learned that a guy named Drew Shoals with whom I'd gone to college was back in Portland after graduation and doing very well for himself as a jazz/funk/fusion drummer, so I checked out the next show he had coming up. We caught up during the band's break. He's the same age as Emily and Eddie, and he's making a living doing what he loves. Portland's too small for his ambitions, so he'll be off to New York, most likely, in the next few years, having grown up here.
I commented to the_drifter while we were hanging out the other day that Portland seems to be a great place to come find yourself. It nurtures some and doles out tough love to others. You can stare out at the rain and stare into yourself. Yesterday at Palio, I was reading one of the MSS I've got checked out from $PDXLitMag for review, and a phrase in a story about a non-traditional college student sent this jolt of excitement through me: It's time! It's time to go back to school! I feel like law school is the right place to go next - I'm nervous about the debt, and reluctant to give up the easy, relaxed lifestyle I have now, but I'm ready. And in 2009, I intend to return to Portland.
I walked home from Palio, looking up a street lined with tall, thick old trees. They had been planted there intentionally, mindfully, as saplings, when the dream of Ladd's Addition was carried out. 115 years later, the trees are huge and strong, and they shade one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Portland.
Growth takes time. Great things happen slowly. Look inward. You will know what to do.