this whole thing started almost a year ago. then, sitting in my comfortable co-op in madison, listening to jazz, i could not have pictured these faces that came into and shaped my life. and things were good there.. my life was there, friends, certainty, safety. sarah was there.
we drove across the country, couchsurfing along the way.. in my mind, it was a sort of great american past-time. my path emptied into a meditation retreat, scenes on a seattle beach, guitars, randomness. i was at a motel 66 in eugene, crossing the street on my way to a thai restaurant when i saw, for the first time, a young fellow from baltimore, his name david. we joined company and ate and the next day departed for the summer's work, thereby entering into another whole long world.
three months later i awoke from the painfully harsh and beautiful dream of trees and mountains and labor, and returned to my many addictions and comforts, into the city. yes! and thank god it was there: to feed the monkey on my shoulder, to drip onto my reeling mind, the great, irreplaceable drug of civilization. it is my mother and father, and after the summer, i felt myself a baby, crawling my way back to the monster. this time the monster was a darkly-lit, mysterious city, the capital of the underside, where all freaks eventually pass.. portland.
by then i had grown accustomed to david. and rose as well.. a young women i met on the trail, local to the area, of whom i was, at the time, naively excited about. i felt emboldened- i think we all did... being discharged like a group of wild animals into this city- pockets stuffed with cash. i was drunk on the exuberance of starting something new, something yet undefined and alluring with its potential. the momentum carried us with little effort of our own. the possibility of community was there.. of redefining ourselves in our own ways.
and so we did. the girl and i burnt out right away.. like a disappointing chinese firework.. a dud of the heart. it seems that whatever it was we had, couldn't survive the transition from the woods to the streets. david was still there though, and we ventured forward, onward, into a dark and exciting unknown. It was then I first met kristen.. an artistic girl.. a girl with this spunkyness about her. the kind of girl that you see in a photograph somewhere and get the feeling she's really cool somehow; that someday, you're gonna have friends like that. right there on the edge of the wave.. i have the tremendous feeling that i want to be apart of it. that's not just kristen; all of portland's like that. i remember thinking about the city before i ever saw it.. even then then was the electricity running through some mental/visual association i had. where, dear god, do these things come from?
we stayed at kristen's place for 3 weeks. we dumpster-dived, and played chess and smoked and drank. we philosophized. and there was this porch.. that goddman place where we were more alive and hidden, tucked away in some corner of northwest... the scenes.. they were totally new! bam. stars mother fucker. and we all see stars.
david found some place eventually. it was deep north and i wasn't thrilled, but at $245, the attraction overcame the weight of resistance. we were the minority in the house then.. it was they who already lived there. it was an empty house in both the physical as well as the social- quiet and uptight. indeed, that poor fuck called shad spoke no more than 100 words the entire month or two he lived there. ye god!
slowly though it changed. and as they began to leave, we filled the spots with our own. in no time at all, the house took on a new air. a feeling not so stifled by a long and stagnant culture of reservation and hiding. carla was coming. we were bringing back the magic from the summer.
-winter in portland-
i remember the max in the winter. the streets, the cars.. goddamn puddles of half melted snow splashing from car tires.. that scene i have seen since birth. it's different in winter, and of course so. how does one describe this? the feeling isn't felt until it passes and then one day, months later, you're going about your day and you hear a song, and like a pure shot in the mainline it hits you.. and vaguely haunts you.. suddenly this forgotten and beautiful vein is hit and the neural networks explode and the feeling, the FEELING comes flooding back. smells do that too.. especially smells of girls.. so anyway, it hit last night and this whole forgotten world consumed me once again. fuck is it good. here it is: we were in my room, probably listening to sam harris, philosophizing, sharing dinner. candles and ohms. what was it? i don't know. brotherhood. yes, a brotherhood.. and i am thankful for that.
the snow melted and another world consumed me without my permission.. god, without my even knowing. and suddenly, here i am. in the boring, listless present. did any of that winter magic ever really occur?
i take another sip and feel the strange warm fogginess thicken around me. let me tell you.. now let me tell you of the dark city we call portland...
in the city of lights, portland, the scenes sometimes blend into one, the bridges, the stores, streets, buses. and i was driving with erin across one of those bridges, a high one, above the city, looking down, looking at the lights. a giant monster, breathing, deeply, alive.. at the bottom of the sea. from the bridge i can almost hear its devourous grumble. what makes that deep sound that vibrates in my body? there are thousands of travelers walking cracked sidewalks and cars and trucks and bikes zooming in the darkness in every direction. a thousands voices, and a thousands stories.. surely, it is them who make the noise. but there's something else as well.. an anonymous buzz coming somewhere from the belly itself.. its source unknown.
i biked around portland the first time i came here. it was almost a year ago now. i was staying at ian's house and he let me use the bike. i went to wherever it took me.. lost in the city. then of course, the streets were still unknown.. unrecognizable. now i can look back and with these new eyes, these new neural networks formed, i have some understanding of those streets. it was daytime then, so the beast was still asleep... i felt a certain difference. no doubt we all do. the safety and piety of the daylight and that holiness there. like mother's perfumed sweater.
a city like this is some sort of project that we are all collectively apart of. there's something that connects us by being here. a shared experience of the monster. it's subterranean, underground, underneath.. subconscious. this primitive, dark, lizard where we dwell.
-spring again-
my final departure is schedule and is now imminent and irreversible. the loss of this city and my friends in their current form is difficult and i feel the whisper of death (and life) through it. everything is changing and passing. as i leave portland, i find myself thinking again about erin. in some way, this is the far-off, last remaining link i have with her. soon that too will be washed up in the continuous outpouring of time, and fade in my memory until there is only an image in my mind of what we once had. david will remain close to my heart, and there will always be this experience that we shared.. a brief and beautiful moment of freedom, when are paths crossed and we created together.
life is beautiful and strange. i was thinking about where and who i may end up as, and it seems i've always known that i'll be back in madison with family and close friends. this has been an incredible year of growth and amazing experiences. the portland experiment was worthwhile. it lasted 7 months. I got to know the monster in an intimate way, and for that I feel grateful. and now, it is coming to its final end. in my heart there is grace and gratitude for all that has been. in my mind, i feel the tremendous force of life like a tidal wave crashing down on us all.. overwhelming me, propelling me, flowing wildly through me. it is all i can do, to let it go.
be well,
eric
