We're half awake in a fake empire

listening: The National, "Fake Empire"

This has truly been a long absence from the blogosphere for me, but I've been doing a lot of thinking and doing and frankly, too much baking. The pursuit of just one of my dream jobs has kept me busier and much more exhausted than I'd anticipated, but it has been an unforgettable experience nonetheless.

The only reason I came here today to deposit my thoughts is that I've been listening to mix tapes lately, old and new, desperately remembering what I was trying to say, what someone else said to me and have been reflecting on friendships, failed relationships, new relationships. I've been in the Ssip now for several months and originally only planned to be here for a short term life, eight to nine months at most, before moving on to the next destination. And then I became nauseated from all the moving and realized I need some stasis.

This is a vastly different feeling than what I had a few months ago. Back in December, I could have sold off nearly everything just to go back to Portland. Granted, there are days I want to go back and those are the days I get stuck listening to mixes MJ made for me. Those are the days that all I want to do is dance with her and cook with her and holler at people on bicycles with her. Today suddenly became one of those days because every time I hear "Fake Empire," I think of her. In a minute, I'll move on to another song, but I'll still miss her.

All of that being said, I also had a really great couple of weeks that remind me of what I adore about being in Jackson and ease the heartache. I've had walks and talks and group television watching and Vagina Monologues and gym buddies and now, new mixes. The new mixes are hopeful and full of excitement, something that the mixes from 2008 didn't have. Those mixes were simply content and slightly shallow. These are made of motion, but this motion, while forward, keeps me in orbit here and now, just where I want to be.

It's never quiet as it seems, 'cause you're a dream to me

Listening: The Cranberries, "Dreams"


These arms belong to Casey. There have been a lot of days lately when I wonder what it will be like to be without her in my immediate environment. I try hard not to have those days. Unfortunately, moving will make this a reality for both of us. I really do believe that one day soon she and I will share the same city again, barreling down unfamiliar streets, discovering more "Little Saigons," learning more Jay-Z lyrics, fretting over what to cook for pot luck dinners. Casey has been the constant in my life since arriving in Portland. We separately planned to move here and somehow ended up here on the same day. Since January 1st, 2007, my life has changed for the better. I have learned so much about having adult friendships and it's due to my relationship with her. I have learned how to unabashedly say "I love you" and enjoy the embraces, the joyful grins shared over pretty drinks.

Friendship isn't the only gift Casey has given me. She's also shown me new ways to look at the world around me. While we both work in jobs that focus on education, we have different perspectives, a varying scope. Casey charges into the world with a roar, photographing, writing, reporting: this is the world to which you should focus your attention. She is going to shake the journalism world up more than she already has. Casey made a magnificent impact on the readership of the New York Times with her reporting from Africa. Rather than present yet another story full of anonymous statistics and incomprehensible disease names, Casey gave us heart, she showed us the people by relaying the plight of a woman named Prudence. Now she pours her heart and soul into stories about teenagers in Oregon, the entrepreneurs of their generation, the artists to watch and learn from, the struggles we forget about as adults outside their world.

I cannot wait to see the roads she'll take us on.
She's amazing and kind and so, so lovely. (thank you, thank you, thank you)
I'm so blessed to call her my B.

Watch her jumpstart.

Something's unguided in the sky tonight

This is a bittersweet time for me right now. I leave in a little over a week from a home I've built in the Pacific Northwest for the road...I've written enough over the past weeks. How about another mix? I believe this one reflects all parts of my time here and my time to come:

Til I see you around, til we clear the accounts

I have this problem.


I keep the New Pornographers' song "Challengers" on repeat. I think it is a testament to Carl Newman's songwriting abilities that this song has kept me so engaged. It's such a beautiful letter for "Hi. I like you, but....maybe later?"

And this whole discussion that will lead to my amazement at how Neko Case's face reflects the hopeful sadness in the video, etc, is actually a distraction keep me from talking about the real reason for this post.

I quit my job Monday.
I gave notice to my landlord this evening.

This move is really happening. Meditating on this the past few days, I've seen Portland in a new light. My eyes are not mine recently, or maybe they are and are irrevocably changed. While I'm looking forward to seeing family and friends, welcoming the touch of humidity to my face and hearing the familiar music of the Southern accent(s), I am feeling fiercely loyal to my current city, my Portland.

I have been making a mental list of things I will miss, what I will not miss, things I never experienced here. The first list seems to be the longest: regular recycling, bike lanes, Cacao, happy hours with my coworkers/friends, my housemates, my B, Mount St. Helens' silhouette, La Bonita, dance nights, the Skidmore Bluffs. . .

It will be interesting to surf couches and cities and embrace a new life on the road (for a time). I wonder if I'll find anything to replace these things (never B or other B). Ha! I talk so much about feeling unsettled and needing "home," and here I go making the road my home.

I rest my head on a pillowy star and a cracked-door moon that says I haven't gone too far

Listening: Wilco, "Via Chicago" (Thanks, Jeff Tweedy, for the subject title)


I'm still stuck on the ideas of "home" and returning South after being way up here in the Pacific Northwest and what all of this means, etc. So, bear with me, it's what I'll be writing about quite a bit with breaks in between to review things like The Mountains Goats' Heretic Pride (waaaaaaaay overdue), The Master Butchers Singing Club, talk about new projects like the review writing exchange. There won't always be such heavy talk here.

When I left Mississippi I knew in my heart of hearts (what does that expression mean anyway?) that I was doing exactly the right thing at the exact right moment in my life to pick up and move so far away. I needed space and time to sort my thoughts, to start my life again after surviving a broken heart, to challenge myself. I've always been at ease in social situations, but the thought of starting all over again, building community in a place I'd never been (truth be told now: I'd never set a foot in Portland, Oregon, before I arrived here last January) truly frightened me and in the outcome, made me more self-aware and confident.

Fast forwarding through the last year+, I've managed to gather some kind of surrogate and wonder family. After a hiccup of a try at living with my landlord, I moved into a yellow house with two soon-to-be great friends. I found a home with them: community dinners, dancing in the kitchen, having kitty friends and learning to chase chickens. I've spent time with this amazing lady (and her equally amazing and hilarious husband) and will be fortunate to meet their son, for whom they've fought so hard these past few months. I found something of a soulmate (as much as I don't know what I think about such things, I do think that souls recognize each other, a la Plato, but that's another entry altogether) in a lady who moved here when I did, independently of me. She has become a favorite fixture in my life and it will surely shatter my heart the day I leave her here. I found a job I really love and has helped me learn more about what my life's work will be. I made great friends at that job, exploring the city's many happy hours through laughter and sharing of lives with them.

And now I am choosing to leave this all behind.

I knew when I moved to Portland that it would be a tenuous existence and that something else would propel me forward again. For all the reasons I could move back to Mississippi (admirers, Eudora Welty, my family, the way the Delta feels to my skin, 930), there are a million reasons why I cannot and should not right now. I have more to find out about this great big world and as a child I'd dream of seeing what else is out there. I know that I need to be back in the South, if for nothing else than to get a refill on the hopes and dreams that only Southern air can inspire. I hope that a stay in Austin will soothe my need to know about living in Texas, the romanticized version inspired in my childhood by reading and watching Lonesome Dove. My next stop will be North Carolina to see if I can wrangle a teaching job in Charlotte, where two of my other life's loves live currently. Maybe one day Mississippi will be in the cards for me. I will spend time with M&P, pay visits to gravesites, bask in sunshine and then say goodbye. I think right now it would take something catastrophic to get me to plant my feet back there. I have a lot of love and fierce adoration in my heart for the Ssip, but there's more out there. There will be a lot of travel and moving and shifting in the next six or so months, but it comes down to this:

Some people find stability in staying in one place for decades, content with stasis. Today, my stability comes in the form of momentum, changing my orbit, always moving forward even with a few steps back.

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!