My quest to find my people landed me back at home on the farm just like…what’s her face.
“Wow, I feel like Bilbo Baggins,” I thought. When my adventure began, I was so full of hope. I was finally on my way to find my people, see amazing things, have an adventure. But, I ended up landing in the middle of a battlefield during this country’s biggest civic unrest since the Civil Right’s Movement. And I would do it all during the Great Pandemic of 2020.
But now, the more I realize it, I don’t think “The Hobbit” is the right metaphor. I wasn’t Bilbo. And I wasn’t leaving The Shire. I was more like our friend Dorothy. You remember her? Troubled Dorothy who lived on a boring farm in Kansas, with a strange circle of friends and family, who didn’t fit in and was just sure there was a place for her somewhere over the rainbow.
Yes, that sounds about right. A strong storm blows up her world and she finds herself in OZ, looking for the wizard in a hipster town called The Emerald City. And that’s exactly what I did. Sort of. I set a course for the unknown, along the yellow brick road, in search of a place I’d never even been to find wiser people, greener acres, and the chance to rise above the stodgy poor farm-folk I had come to believe were holding me back from happiness.
Rage City
I was so ready to embrace all that Portland had to offer, but I wasn’t stupid. I did as much research as one person could do. And let me tell you, the marketing efforts to instill the perfect picture of the coolest town on earth are second to none.
Rose City.
Bridge Town.
The Pearl?
Jesus Christ. I reached out to people who lived there. I took video tours of places. I did everything I could have done remotely, which is all anyone could have done during a Pandemic anyway. But no one tells you that you’re heading into a $2000 rental in the “cool part of town” that includes:
Piles of needles scattered around your building.
People getting hurt and screaming all night, every night outside your building in the multi-block city-sanctioned homeless camps.
Bombs going off all night, tear gas, police brutality, and fringe groups of battle-ready angry people excited and ready to “play revolution” and start fights.
I have hesitated to write about what happened in Portland for months because…It’s Complicated. It’s horrible. And, well, you weren’t there. What I saw was a pure mindfuck. I would wake up nightly to drumming and chanting to “wake up, wake up, wake up mother fuckers, wake up!” and chants to “Get out of your sheets and onto the streets” at 2:00 am in the morning. Many of the protests that began outside my building called for people to bring their kids and pets to the march, fully knowing that they had a good chance to turn violent later. How could anyone in good conscience call upon people to do that? And everyone had a mixed message ready to co-opt the movement. And this wasn’t the time for that. People were—and still are—dying. But there was hardly a day that the message wasn’t blended with a “fuck capitalism” and “Fuck the mayor” or “Kill Ted Wheeler” protest. The building next to me was set on fire. Meanwhile, happy people showed up and brought costumes and puppets to the show. A woman posed naked and showed the police her vagina in the single-most-tone-deaf moment of the year. When I pointed this fact out, I was called an “ableist” for using the word “tone-deaf.”
And it wasn’t just the protests. I watched a full grown white man lose his shit and throw chairs at a shop owner who wouldn’t let him smoke on her patio, calling her names and accused her of being a “stupid white cunt” for 20 minutes. I watched two cyclists pick a fight with a middle-aged woman walking her dog. People weren’t west-coast chill. They were ragey and terrible. The rage in that city was palpable and always just brimming beneath the surface.
I watched as two young men shot up on my doorstep while the police sat next to them and talked to my neighbor. Later in the evening, people came out to fight each night. Everyone was playing Fight Club, and no one had anything better to do. There’s not a lot that scares me anymore, but unchecked mental illness and extreme drug use do. Throw in a lack of breathing air and take away the sun, and I don’t think I can do it for very long.
590 sq feet of reget
But, like Dorothy, I guess I had to go through it. At least now I know. I don’t have a lot of wild oats left to sow, and I learned a lot of important things along the way. Dorothy sets out on her journey with just her tiny dog in tow. She gets some bad advice from “the good witch,” and proceeds to put all her hopes in meeting the right person in some Big City.
I’d always wanted to try living the loft life. And boy am I glad I got that out of my system. Hey, for one thing, now I know what having zero insulation, crumbling brick walls, and exposed pipes is like. It’s being able to hear your neighbor sneeze through the walls. It’s hearing constant fighting, and being able to hear the opening theme to Schitt’s Creek play over and over through the entire building (that’s my bad, sorry guys). It’s bad, horrible smells. It’s giant, horrible bugs that crawl out from the drain to kill you in the middle of the night. It’s dirty water from a big water tower and fire alarms that go off ALL THE TIME. It’s a spider problem.
The thing is…I know what makes me happy now. And I think I knew it before. I loved my home. I love hot bubble baths. I love having a place to feel safe and warm. I loved having a place where my puppy felt protected. I liked living in the farm. But people kept telling me how much I needed to escape. That I had to get out and find my people, meet a guy, meet someone, etc.
I don’t think that has ever made me happy.
Lions, Tigers, and People who actually ride their bikes in the grocery store FFS
Along the way, Dorothy collects a rag-tag team of misfits. She has a circle of support that looks a little weird. And I think, throughout this entire experience, that’s something that I hadn’t expected either. In my initial quest to “find my people,” I ended up redefining my circle of support. It ended up looking like this:
One or two colleagues at work who supported my decision to move and try it out, even though they weren’t sure I would like it.
A doctor, back home, that I could trust.
My therapist.
My dog.
One or two close friends near and far from way back when.
One or two family members.
Dorothy ends up in The Emerald City and runs around trying to keep up with the cosmopolitan people she meets in the flashy place. Everyone is focused on appearance. Yet, her reputation is still there when she arrives. The Wicked Witch of the West has written her name in the sky. There are flying monkeys waiting to find her. It doesn’t work out. But Dorothy is smart. She goes to the wizard and sees right through everything. “Hey…you guys are full of shit.”
She was right.
My Future Self
One morning, after a long night of flash-bang explosions, tear gas, and yelling from just outside my window, I got up and took Sprocket out for a walk. It was hazy, foggy, and wet. When I left the building, there was glass everywhere on the street. Human waste, and garbage too.
But, you had to leave your apartment when you had a puppy. You had to take him out. As I did, I noticed several large suitcases by the front door. An old woman was pulling them. She also had a large baby stroller, pilled high with soggy wet blankets and clothes. It took me a second to realize what I was looking at. She was homeless and relocating all her possessions from one place to another. Shuffling from one spot to another, carrying everything one owned was pretty common. A feeling of hopelessness welled up inside my throat. The woman started talking to me, but she had no teeth—none—so it was hard to understand her. I nodded and said hello, but I had a mask on, so I’m not sure she understood me.
“Ma’am!” She yelled back. She wanted to show me something. Under the covers in the baby stroller, she revealed a tiny, sleeping chihuahua who popped his head up when she pulled the blankets back. It’s tiny tongue sticking out, the little eyes barely open. It looked just like Sprocket.
She said something else, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Then she said, I think, “I’m OK. I had(?) a place to stay but (???) I had to go. The riots…” Then, again, “I’m OK.”
I nodded and walked away with Sprocket. I made it around the corner before I lost it and cried into my mask. I knew Portland wasn’t going to work.
Thanks Dorothy
The nice thing about Dorothy Gale is that, even though she spends the entire story walking to The Emerald City, and even though she kills the Wicked Witch, and even though she is so invested in her goal, when it’s clear it doesn’t work out, she never has a moment when she’s like, “Damn…but I made such a big deal about coming here, I’m gonna look so stupid if I go back!” No. She knows she wants to go back and that OZ isn’t for her anymore. She’s ready to head home and that’s that.
It might have taken me six or seven months of bloated rent in a shit hole neighborhood. It may have taken three weeks of evacuation through the west when the whole state went up in flames. It may have taken a lease termination fee and pricey moving expenses to get the fuck out of there. It may have even taken a failed attempt at sight-seeing through Bend. But, I figured it out, too.
Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore. Don’t seek joy at all costs. – Cheryl Strayed
