Belmont District

I walk. It's sunny and 65 out. I walk SE Belmont after a run up 60th. I walk to Laurelhurst Park via 37th, it's 10:30ish a.m. and I tell myself I'll lay in the grass staring up at the sky until my legs get itchy but they never do so I eventually get up and sit on a bench and listen to a man playing the violin across the pond and I can't get it out of my head that all things Italian seem to be sprouting up and I'm wondering if it's some kind of sign and then remind myself that everything I see somehow becomes a jigsawed sign I weave together piecemeal and so I continue staring at the pond and it starts to sprinkle and then stops and the sun stops shying away and stays out for a while, for the rest of the day and I go back down 37th and stop in at Sound Grounds and order honey tea and smile at the girl behind the counter who is not smiling back and I smile again at her tenacity and individual conviction to not smile still when I stop back by some five hours later for more hot water and so I add more honey to my cup and wander down Belmont somemore to 20th, to Yamhill, to Colonel Summers Park, past a community garden, past a dilapitated Buddhist Temple, past three men cleaning up their mother's burnt down trailer, past balconied apartments, past the interwined layers of modern architecture merged with houses from the 1800's and the Japanese Maples and past Anansi Beat, an african drum store that I will stop into an hour later, where the first question will be, "what is your name?" and I will sit down with the owner and talk for two hours as I watch him tighten the ropes on a Djembe and skin the hair from the top of the drum, and see random youtube clips streaming from the computer in the background and realize the culmination of then and now and yesterday and tomorrow, like a messy braid we secure at the end, and I'll listen about Ghana and then I'll decide to walk the long way back to my brother's house, because returning there isn't quite like returning home and I walk up and through Mount Tabor where I'll want to capture the 360 degree view of layered mountains and downtown and Mt Hood out there tiptoing in the clouds but my phone will have died a few hours before and I'll know it's because you can't possibly take a picture like an x-ray and capture what sinks into your bones and so I cried instead and smiled and walked the descent of a dirt trail down to 67thish and asked a stranger for a pen and sat on the sidewalk as I transcribed some version of my inner layers out onto the canvas of my arms, wrapping the words around my thumb, and up next to the shoulder of a tattoed female on my forearm and I got up and knew I wasn't smiling because I had somehow learned to praise every physicality of myself, every bone or scratch or freckle or scar or stretch of skin, or every undulated emotion pouring forth or accepted every time I didn't stop myself when I spoke or everytime I did and regretted it and I walked on down 67th to Powell and to sort of steal from Emerson as good art is mostly stolen smartly, my emotions centipeding along the sidewalk, my sympathies somewhere else or everywhere at once, I smiled at the unfurling and hurling of myself at myself and it is hard hitting and I keep walking down 67th and it's somewhere around 5 p.m. and I'm falling in love all over the city.

A week in pictures.

With a little hiccup in my journey this week, a detour of sorts, I have found myself exploring Portland for a bit, job hunting and selling my car, learning the ins and outs of Portland via bike, bus and foot, seeing the city from a new perspective. I have been writing things down in piecemeal, haphazardly, so here are some photos from the last week, some of which speak for themselves, reminding me of friends and the interesting things I am finding along the way. Keep Portland weird.

A picture for Preston... a little Cowboy counterpart I drove past before getting into Portland.

Mt. Tabor sunrise.

Sunset walks.

Portland's recycling extravaganza.

Tea at Pieper Cafe on Foster. 80's music always playing.

Trust the process.

Sunset on my drive from Logan to Portland.

Siblings.

A book I first came across at a b&b in Mt. Shasta when I was ten or so, came across it at Powell's.

Food Pods.

Vietnamese bakery. Banh mi.

Bike Portland.

Powell's on Hawthorne.

Thai food cart.

Toto in downtown.

Sunset on a walk by my brother's place.

Tom Yum Soup.

Cozy cafe on Division and 60th: mason jar water cups, mismatched furniture, Thursday night readings, darling gals slinging coffee.

Coffee at Powell's downtown, which takes up two blocks of Burnside... books, books, books.

Food pods all over Portland.

Cathedral Bridge.

Eva's cookin'... traditional Chinese food.

Cheese and crack! A little alley stand tucked along shops on Hawthorne.

"A self-observation-operation".

How can we know what freedom feels like unless we've been unshackled from our own devices?

Brother and Eva at the Cathedral Bridge along the Colombia River.

Lebanese food! Yum!

Stimulation Ova-Ova-ovaload.

Got Multnomah County library card, found humor in the man allowing me one if I didn't mind signing my life away, learning the Trimet, getting lost on bike on the backstreets behind Hawthorne, nausea, ass wet without fenders, (who doesn't have fenders in Portland?, this girl), learning Portland's recycling system, composting, sleeping 9 hours straight to wake exhausted, drinking more water, herbal tea, Eva's humor, the thought of a spider going for a stroll,(why wouldn't spiders go for walks as well?), blindsided humility. Eclectic coffee shop on SE Division. Rain or Shine.

Stimulation Overload

Powell books on Hawthorne, a drive through Old Town, on up to northwest heights, Forest Park, moss covered trees, or as Eva calls it, "green body hair", on around skyline peering in at million dollar homes tucked into the side of the mountain, Mt. Hood at eye level, Carts on Foster, food pods, freedom, Cathedral park on the Colombia river, finding "the beach" among the industrialization and beer cans waiting to be plucked up for recycling, the affirmation of cliche that Portland is, not knowing if I just saw the same girl twice, looking slightly similar to that very cliche, Men at Work playing again in the Oriental market, Lebanese dinner, Cheese and Crack, crack box, art, half a heart in Utah, caffeine crashing, learning to love me.

Portlandia

11 hours, 715 miles, 3 tanks of gas, 90 something dollars, 80 on the 84, watching the sunset with Buddha on the dashboard as Bob FM plays Pat Benetar and Men at Work and Huey Lewis and the News, a PBR sighting on Montello Ave, and two states later I find myself in Portland, Oregon, where the streets are appropriately far from "neat", and just how everyone likes it. Most of the drive yesterday was spent thinking how all things are inevitably connected. I pondered where I am now in relation to the people in my life, how I would not have been in Utah had so many other events not occurred. I would not have arrived in Portland today, most likely putting it off another couple weeks, had I not gone out into the white nothingness of Benson Marina with Preston back in Utah, and saw a bird thriving, flying, having survived winter, and then moments later witnessed the contrast of black feathers and blood on snow from another who was not so fortunate. Why I decided that day to leave sooner I'm not quite certain other than it was just time, but I found myself waking at 7 this morning for a sunrise run, weaving through the quirky neighborhoods of SE Portland and meandering Mt. Tabor Park with my brother to see an exquisite view of Mt. Hood, eating Banh Mi for lunch from a place off Foster and 54th, and riding my bike down to Fred Meyer's to buy razors, because as I still won't be wearing a bra, I do choose to keep grooming... Pictures to come when I get a better hang of this blogging shtuff, or ever just get organized.

"My house is me and I am it."

My favorite book growing up was a little gem called The Big Orange Splot. Mr. Plumbean lives on a "neat street", where all the houses are the same, until one day a mysterious bird drops a can of orange paint, A BIG ORANGE SPLOT, on his house. From that moment on Plumbean is inspired to defy conventional thought, embracing and welcoming this opportunity for change and the discovery to be, well, just himself. He paints his house every color you can imagine, sets up a hammock in his front lawn and adopts an alligator. His neighbors soon find themselves exploring and implementing their own expressions of who they are. It's a children's book, but as often as they are, it is about so much more: individuality, creativity, acceptance, exploration, sharing, listening, enjoying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cPfjzYJcok

"I have nothing to sell, I have a lot to share."

3 weeks. Or tomorrow. Or a week. Or right now. Three hours. Or 45 minutes. I can leave at a moment's notice. Just as my car can move in one direction, I can always navigate it back to the places I have been. I can come and go as I please, and though things might be different when I do, that freedom is enough to feel good about change and motion. So, on the note of change and motion and returning to places both mentally, physically, viscerally, I'm composing an on-going list of the things in my past I have appreciation for:
Growing up with a best friend, Blaire who allowed me to learn how goodit is to share in the face of change, who when I see now after a month or a year or two I am just as connected as ever with her. Worry goes out the window in her presence.
Two parents with all their faults and folly and glory and love and acceptance and humaneness who to this day want me to be utterly happy and healthy and thriving and alive.