this essay I wrote back in early spring, before we packed up and moved over here to Bend...
PACKING UP AFTER TEN YEARS
Man, I'm finally moving.
I've been in this low-income apartment, in this low-income apartment house, in this expensive neighborhood, for ten years—well, nine years and ten months. That's the second longest time I've lived in one place in my life.
And what a lot of possessions I've accumulated. When I moved in here, a couple of months after I went on Social Security Disability, I had almost nothing: a suitcase and a duffel-bag of clothes, a smallish box of books, an old clock radio, and a sleeping bag. For cooking, I had one pot, a wok, skillet, and a few utensils. All my possessions would have fit in the passenger seat of an old Honda. I moved them in, in fact, by bus trips.
I have a lot more than that now: working and non-working computers, several hundred books, a microwave, TV, VCR, stereo, desks, filing cabinets, a chest of drawers, tables, two telephones, two dozen or so old LP records, maybe seventy-five cassette tapes, sixteen video tapes, tools, a complete set of cookware, camping gear, coffee maker, blankets, pictures on the walls—a thoroughly furnished one bedroom apartment. I'm a man of property.
My partner and I finally made up our minds to leave Portland. She's lived here for the majority of her life: thirty-six years. She's seen Portland grow from a medium-sized provincial city to a large sophisticated urban tangle. The Portland metro area is 2,000,000-plus, and growing. From a murder every couple of months to weekly shootings and countless over-dose deaths. People even pull guns to argue over parking places in trendy neighborhoods.
It isn't a good way to live, at least for me. We managed to get in some trips out of Portland. We enjoyed our trips: small towns, quiet times, peaceful scenery, and people not caught up in the urban mania.
But we always came back. And I always felt a sink-hole open up when we returned. It wasn't possible for me to hang onto the expanded self I felt when we were out of the city. Within a couple of days back in the city, it was almost like I'd never been gone. Sirens, homeless people pissing outside my window, cars, horns, crowded supermarket aisles...everytime I went outside, rather than expand, I'd contract. Each trip to the store was an opportunity to collect resentments. Each car trip left me uptight and cranky. I wasn't a pleasant person to be around.
I came to Portland after years of living in rural southern Oregon. I had been seriously out of touch. The cosmopolitan character of Portland helped me feel like a kid at Christmas. Viet food, Cambodian food, quality Italian cooking, even real tamales, markets where you could find everything from sushi to masa to Tamari...food, food, food.
And bookstores. Ten years ago, it seemed like almost every neighborhood had a used book store. They don't anymore, but Powell's has grown to cover a full city block and has a nationwide reputation. Its almost like going to a large library. There are still other used book places, as well as a good radical book store, and a couple of mystery book stores, a women's book store, new age book stores, and the big chain stores. Better, there are the Goodwills and other thrift stores, good places to find dollar and two dollar books. I definitely don't find books that cheap at Powell's.
Portland is more than a good city just for books and food. There are more than enough activist groups and organizations. Everything from the Animal Liberation Front to Xenophobics United has a presence. Radical Women, the Gray Panthers, Libertarian Party, National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws, Audobon Society, Right to Life, Right to Death—there's something for everyone. Live music thrives—everything from the symphony to blues. The art museum is famous. All really nice and cultural. That's not enough for me, anymore.
I want to have a life where I can see animals rather than agitate for them; where I don't have to go to a tree museum to see trees, to a zoo to see eagles, or to a movie to see stars. I'd rather hear coyote calls than sirens, and rather watch clouds than the latest band. I'd prefer to experience the seasons rather than be aware of them through changing fashions seen in shop windows.
There is a cost. I have many friends here; good friends who have stood by me when IÕve gone through hard times and good times, and whom I have succored while they've gone through their joys and losses. I won't really enjoy losing daily or weekly contact with them. I hope they won' be glad to see me go away: probably not. Friends can often see what I need to do before I can see it. They tell me they believe the move will be good for me. Won't glad and sad. That's the way it is in life: glad and sad all mixed up together.
I've been talking about getting out of Portland for several years. It took a while; there are many variables involved in getting it together. Since I quit drinking, a decade or so back, I've become sort of timid and conservative. I'm nearly sixty-two, and that old urge to throw a couple of T-shirts and a pair of jeans in a backpack and take off for where-ever, is long gone. I kind of miss it, sure. But I also appreciate that I've changed— maybe even matured. Planning things out seems like a practical way to accomplish things. I make sure I'm off of the limb before I start sawing on it. I prefer not to crash "anywhere, man." Hell, I don't even sleep on the ground anymore when I go camping—I have a cot!
As of today, X minus 7, I have only to fill a half-dozen more boxes. I have three pieces of furniture to eliminate: a big couch that was here when I came, a filing cabinet, and a broke-down recliner. I don't expect trouble finding them new homes; I have no money invested in them, so it isn't even a matter of finding buyers. Worse comes to worse, they go in the dumpster. My surplus computers have gone away, extra and unwanted books, even a bookcase—gone to new homes. Bye.
I'm going to miss some of the neighbors. Despite the institutional nature of this apartment building, there are some people here whom I genuinely enjoy seeing on a regular basis. The trouble is, there are others who I see on a regular basis and I can't stand. There are some marginally medicated psychotics who are scary. A few obnoxious drunks. On more than one occasion, I've come across stoned-out people, not even building tenants, wandering the halls. The cops and paramedics come regularly. Every so often, maybe three or four times a year, someone is found dead in his or her apartment, a lonely life ended. This building is basically a one-way street for too many residents: they come here and stay until they die. A couple of them were close friends: Sherry, a Blackfeet woman, who lived here while she was waiting for a liver transplant that never happened; Harold, a retired autoworker, had his kidneys give up a month ago; Papa Joe—his heart gave out. I felt lonelier when they passed on. Their deaths increased my own fears of mortality, as well: it could happen to me here. I didn't want that—as if I had control over it! For me, there are better places than here. Probably no big cities are any better than Portland, but I think there are small cities and towns that are better.
And that's where we're going, to a town of about 50,000, over on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. On the west side of town are pine and fir forests; on the east side, sagebrush and juniper. Portland is a wet place; Bend, where we're going, is dry. Precipitation comes as summer thunderstorms and as winter snow; they have over 250 days of sunshine a year. No matter how much the Portland TV weather people talk about "sun-breaks", Portland cannot claim anywhere near that number of sunny days. Maybe that many cloudy days, yes, maybe that many days with precipitation. I have arthritis and enough metal-work in my bones that damp weather is increasingly unpleasant. My body feels like an old car. My bearings and u-joints squeak. I just don't have the acceleration and top-end performance anymore. I like to go way under the speed-limit. Portland is defintely a fast-lane city.
So, I'm going away. If I was feeling extravagant, I'd have a T-shirt printed up that says "Happiness is Portland in the Rear View Mirror." It sure is for me. Or, maybe, "Optimism is Portland in the Rear View Mirror."