Exchanged emails this morning with an old girlfriend from the 80s, an actual native born in Portland who has spent her entire life here, and I was surprised to learn she is counting the days until retirement, which are many, so she can flee Portland. She doesn't like it here any more. I think the changes are profound (and not for the better) after living here briefly in the 60s and permanently (!) since the late 70s; they must be unbearable from her perspective.
Yet I'm always meeting folks who moved here in the 90s, usually from California, and think Portland is the best city in America. They are dumbfounded that I don't share their enthusiasm. It all depends on context and perspective, on where you're standing when you look. Except for light rail, I can't think of one change in Portland in the last twenty years that makes this a better city. I can list many things that to my tastes and values make Portland considerably worse than it was in its Golden Age of the 1980s.
"So why don't you leave?" I would in a heartbeat, as soon as I quit teaching, except for one complication: this would require a divorce. My wife loves it here. All her friends are here. One of her daughters and grandchildren are here.
If I could afford it, I'd get a second home in the southwest and spend much, much time there. Alas, I don't expect to win the lottery or anything.
So I remember a line I've used twice in my work, "the inside of my head is my country," and I let Portland enthusiasts do their thing and cherish the occasional exchange with an "old-timer" who feels about Portland the way I do, just so I know I'm not alone in thinking this way. And, of course, I cherish all the wonderful memories I have from the 80s here.
1 comment:
That makes me sad. I grew up there in the 70s and 80s and haven't been back since the great earthquakes of the 90s sent all these californios up north. I just dwell in my idealized youth and remember Multnomah falls when it still had the face of the woman weeping.
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