The Way We Get By

Tomorrow evening, K$ will arrive in Portland. I have missed my sister in a million different ways since I left Jackson (and then she returned to Jackson after graciously tagging along on the Road Trip of the Century) last December. I think about what it will be like for her to be here, my temporary home. I think about if she'll like the things I like about Portland. I wonder if she'll fall in love with it like I did or have her own affair with this magical rainy place. I will show her every wonder I've discovered and hope that she'll have secrets of her own, bridges she adores or neighborhoods that she'll wonder about living in.

I think about leaving this place to return South soon. I will miss so many pieces of it--the strangely named parks (I live half a mile from Unthank Park), seeing toys chained to the old rings used to anchor horses, the sweaty Soul night at Rotture, my daily bus/MAX commute downtown and all of the characters that accompany that trip, seeing Mount St. Helens from my 9th floor office.

The piece I will miss most is the family I have gathered here. I finally found a semblance of home in a person that is not my given family and she will stay here for the foreseeable future. It really is nearly unbearable to think about leaving a piece of your soul or some other intangible organ behind you in your wake. My blood screams to return to the South, to douse my skin in humidity and heat again, but my heart will break.

home.

And I'm still chasing it. I need a place to hang my proverbial hat. A place, a place where I don't feel the stranger and feel the need to change drastically so that I might finally be genuinely and wholly happy here. I've found some semblance of happiness and I think being in Portland has helped me get there, but it's not Portland that made it. I think it was more along the lines of "not the destination, but the journey" idea.

So now I'm going to prepare to scream and push my way back.Really it will be a gliding ride to the homeland. For all of the faults the South carries, at least they make better biscuits there than what I had Saturday morning!