Sometimes the things you think you’re looking for, aren’t the things that are looking for you. Which is not always a bad thing.
This becomes obvious to me in the spring, when I decide it’s time to return home to Portland. I am in Austin at the time, feeling a little lonely on my solo road trip, wandering the streets and missing New England. I call home and hear that a long-time crush is breaking up with his girlfriend, my father is recovering slowly from cellulitis, and my little sister is considering moving in with her boyfriend. I sit on the floor of my little trailer, with the dog beside me on the bed and my back up against the bench my father and I had built just a month or so before. When I hang up the phone, I spend a long time staring at the ceiling above me. And I suddenly feel I need to drive east.
There’s no particular reason I chose to live at great distances from my parents for the last eight years. All they’ve done is offer their unconditional love and support for me and my life choices, which is hardly grounds for avoidance. I’m the oldest child, the independent wanderer to my sister’s steady homebody. I guess I want to see more before I can settle down.
Fast forward to June, when I move my now-limited belongings into a small studio apartment in downtown Portland. I have a loveseat (donated by a family friend), a futon mattress, three boxes of books, three suitcases, and three plastic totes filled with an assortment of kitchen goods and home office supplies. I know almost no one. I’m working for my dad, with no real job in sight. But I feel like I’m in the right place.
In mid-summer, the long-time crush flames out in a ridiculous late-night confession followed by several weeks of awkwardness. I find a job on an organic vegetable farm. I spend tons of time with my family and start a ukulele jam in the park near my house. I get a table for my kitchen, some chairs and a desk. I spray-paint the rusty table legs and decoupage the desk with pages from Harold and the Purple Crayon. A little life starts to bud. I feel more creative than I have in years, driven to learn new skills and do things myself.
It’s fall now, with changing leaves and sweaters and crisp morning air. I’m working on a farm, harvesting food I helped plant, and at a radio station, where I push buttons and occasionally talk on the air. Sometimes I volunteer at the community station, playing music I like and being goofy. I have found a group of people I feel comfortable being my whole self around and love deeply already. I have become an enthusiastic canner, taking home crates of tomatoes and blanching them in culinary meditation - salsas, sauces, and quartered to store for the winter. Plant it, grow it, eat it, keep it.
I am grateful to be close to my family, seeing my parents, grandparents, aunts and cousins. I can drop by the mall and visit my sister at her salon anytime I want, and grab a coffee and laugh about our lives. That lonely and revelatory day in Austin feels so recent, but so far away at the same time. Almost six months later, Portland is home. As the days grow shorter, I’m deeply content. It’s a beautiful feeling.
