The Cob and Log Hampster Wheel

Portland was everything I wanted, and more — in fact, it was everything I didn’t even realize that I wanted until I was on the tarmac of the airport waiting to walk up the stairway to the airplane back to Boston.

It was so surreal — like something out of a movie. There was nobody behind me for at least 20 steps, and I let the chattering girls in front of me get way ahead of me. I stood on the tarmac, and slowly turned my head westward. The hot, fiery, volcanic evening breeze rush across the hot putrid asphalt, and the gusts of wind blew up from the Columbia, somehow so holy in its power that all the pollution is cleansed. My hair blew back like I was maybe riding horses along the Snake River…

I can’t beleive I am going to graduate school in Boston. I closed my eyes to the setting sun, and thought of everything in Portland — the Fresh Pot, the bikes, my friends, the nights spent at Overlook Park rolling around in tall achey grass laughing and spilling wine and eating blackberries until we are sick, playing hot dice, singing Judy Garland and drinking champage, romping in the backyard, examining the pond, racing down the Mississippi Hill, and laying on the floor of Powell’s Books making notes on what new history books fit the theme of "Dramatic One Word Title: How Something Changed the Face of Civilization/the World" theme. Eating tinned fish at Kelly Point Park and repeatedly telling each otherthe story of the grisly murder scene there a few summers ago (no matter how many times we’ve processed it before), talking shit about Earth First but in a meaningful way that is only trying to make things make sense when everything seems crazy, eating Nicholas’ spinach pie on the banks of the Springwater Corridor, processing complex emotions and gender fluxes all while discussing the best trends in handbags and sporty shoes, all the streets around Alberta with their perfect mosaics and greenhouses and wraparound wood porches and herb spirals and artisan carpentry and espalier pear fences. Everything is just so perfect, and I stood there on the tarmac, so sad.  Feeling so delicate.

And yet, a few hours before, i had been drinking coffee in the Fresh Pot and making notes for potential future doctoral dissertation topics, and later, after talkingwith my advisor for my graduate program again, and I felt this quiet hum of "the right decision."  I was overwhelmingly joyous, sitting in front of the coffee shop,  knowing — knowing!–  that I am making a good choice. That is the feeling to bottle and save.  To tack onto my bulletin board, to sew into the hem of my winter coat. To put a dropperful under my tongue when I start to freak out and wonder, "Oh, fuck, what have I done?"   The joy, the knowing, feeling the tingle of unfamiliarity blending with the excitment that I am fulfilling a goal that I have had for 7 years now.  Yes!

But there on the tarmac, the wind was hot, and Portland hugged me tightly. Always my home. The great Pacific Northwest.

But, yes, "fucking A," I’m in Boston.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 17th, 2005 at 10:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.