An Unfamiliar Place

I wake up in the back seat of my car and open the door with my toes.  I’m brushing my teeth in a rest stop parking lot in Astoria, Oregon when I see an otter bob and then disappear into the water.  I eat a granola bar for breakfast, and then Erin and I backtrack to Fort Clatsop so I can satisfy my desire to visit the western terminus of Lewis and Clark’s voyage beyond the newly purchased Louisiana Territory.  Meriwether Lewis began his journey on the Ohio River in Pittsburgh before venturing into unknown lands in which Thomas Jefferson believed there would be dinosaurs.

 

I envy historical figures for their opportunities to make new discoveries, for there were many more blank spaces to be filled back then.  People my age have to get creative to be the first person to document a new area without having to operate a rocket ship or a submarine or somehow arrange a flight to Antarctica.  After reading a sizeable portion of Undaunted Courage, the story of Lewis and Clarke’s epic canoe trip across a vast empire, I am ashamed to remember all the times I used GoogleMaps to direct me to the nearest grocery store.  I briefly retrace the path of Lewis and Clarke as they dragged their canoes ashore.  If I could only experience the joy the men felt when they first lay eyes on the Pacific Ocean, then I shall have found my calling.  Until then we row on with practiced movements and only a vague idea where we are going.

Onward to a gas station in a suburb of Portland where an attendant with a purple rash that covers his cheeks pumps my gas. I wonder why the state of Oregon doesn’t trust each driver to fill his own tank, a regular procedure I have recently completed in Washington a few days ago.  Then I wonder if I should tip the man, but decide not to.  A few blocks down the road I pull into an apartment complex and circle the lot while Kayla gives me directions where to park.  Kayla and I worked together in a restaurant in Pittsburgh, became close friends, and then moved to opposite sides of the country.

I see a woman I recognize, but her glasses are new and she is thinner than I remember.  I introduce Erin and Kayla, and then we carry our dirty laundry inside the apartment, where Kayla pours us coffee.  I ask her how she is adjusting to her recent move, and she expresses doubt about her decision.  She admits that the Oregonian wilderness is beautiful, but there’s not many jobs in Portland.  She misses her friends in Pittsburgh and all the places that have become familiar.  I have not returned to Pittsburgh in over a year and find myself yearning for sights that became comfortably commonplace:  the view of the skyline from Mount Washington, the Manor Theater in Squirrel Hill, the Cathedral of Learning lit up after a victory.  

Kayla asks me what I would do:  stay here or go back home?  I cannot give her my answer until I have seen the city.  She escorts us onto the train that sends us into Portland, where we peruse Powell’s City of Books, a labyrinth of literature in color-coded rooms.  Then to dinner at Deschutes in the Pearl District.  We part ways and agree to meet at the apartment later while Erin and I navigate our way to Voodoo Donut, where their penis-shaped pastries have gained enough fanfare to land them a spot on TV shows like No Reservations and Man v. Food.

 

I wait in a long line outside the donut shop near a homeless man scratching the sidewalk with fingernails caked in dirt.  A few blocks behind us a community of homeless sleep on patches of grass near the curb.  A shirtless, potbellied man shouts in the street and throws punches at a pregnant woman, but no one intervenes.  A rusted Toyota is parked in front of a brick building painted with the slogan:  KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD.  I suspect oddity will never be an endangered species in this city. 

I enter the store and purchase circular donuts and one shaped like a cock that I choose to cut up with a fork later.  While dining on the patio, Erin and I discuss the depravity of the streets and quickly act on our desire to leave this place.  After a stroll through the Rose Garden, we catch the train back to Kayla’s, but now it is dark and we don’t remember which apartment is hers.  We try to find the right door without help, so I refrain from texting Kayla.  We have only been here once, but that is enough to help us find our way back.  Erin recognizes a grocery store across the street and a shortcut through a dirt patch and a staircase that somehow looks familiar even though we are surrounded by replicas.  I knock on the door and Kayla opens it with a surprised look on her face.

From what I have seen of Portland, I would not live there, but I don’t want to tell Kayla that.  I have moved four times, and I did not immediately like my new home at first.  I adjusted out of necessity, but I still complained about what the place lacked.  We seem hardwired to reject an unfamiliar environment until we learn it so well that we find it painful to leave.  Of course Portland is dirty, somewhat scary, and rampant with hipsters wearing cut-off jean shorts, plaid shirts, and handle-bar mustaches.  But the city has beautiful roses, too.

Back in the apartment, Kayla offers us tea.  I search through her cupboard for honey when I find a bottle of olive oil from Giant Eagle Market District, a Pennsylvanian grocery store.  

I can’t believe you brought this all the way out here, I say.  

On the living room floor we drink tea and laugh about the people we knew when our lives intersected on a frequent basis.  We wonder where everyone has scattered.  A mutual friend has gone to China.  He never thought he would leave this tiny restaurant in a mid-sized American city, let alone leave the country. 

I feel like I’m always searching for the next great adventure, Kayla says, but what if the great adventure is already behind me?  What if I was living the great adventure and didn’t realize it?

You already know what to expect from Pittsburgh, I say.  Staying here is a risk, but what if the risk is worth it?    

  

We used to complain about our old routines, and now I find myself being nostalgic for them.  I think of running through my favorite neighborhoods, and I recall conversations with friends I grew very fond of.  But nostalgia rarely leaves room for discomfort.  Before I moved, I didn’t know my way around the city, and there was a time when all my friends were strangers.