A note on home...

     It takes approximately 6 minutes to casually stroll to the Lexington bus stop each morning and approximately one Dolorean song to make it home. These quiet morning strolls I look forward to. Same sidewalk, same “For Sale” sign posted (now with new roof), same parked cars, same empty Miller St. house with the same paint can I never picked up and most often all perceived under the same sprinkle of rain we’ve grown so accustomed to.

     But as you cross 19^th, past that same overly priced for sale house (the one with the new roof), you begin to see the advances of spring. The white house’s yard slightly overgrown, daffodils blooming, blades of the neighbors’ freshly cut grass making their way down the streets of Sellwood, each serving as a promise that spring has come and pulling with her the summer sun.

     In May of 2009 I moved into the Miller house, into a part of Portland I’d never experienced before and into a house with the most perfect of views, a view that I eagerly awoke to be greeted by each morning.  It didn’t take long to fall in love with all of this; gardens and flowers, parks and hidden habitats, a dog here and a family there. It feels like a tiny town tucked within the big city and I love it. In May of 2010 I moved out of the Miller house to Juneau, AK a place and a story worthy of its own time. Then, in January of 2011 I moved back into the Miller house but to a different room with a different view. With engagements, graduations and future uncertainties we decided to let the house go and close the door of the Miller house. And so March 1^st began a new story, a new story located just 4 blocks east of that same Miller house in that same neighborhood we love.

      Saryl and I, sisters and traveling companions, semi-permanently-temporarily joined two of our very dear friends, Chris and Ean in their newly established home, something the landlord must never know. Unfortunately there is no view of Mt. Hood to rush out of bed to and unfortunately we are all very thrifty, leaving the heater to its resting state only to wake to the chilliest of morning air. But fortunately our balcony rests above a pond with a blue heron named, “Henry the Heron,” or for short, “Henry,” our feathered friend who greets each morning with us and fortunately we haven’t packed our winter socks. Unfortunately the mailman continues to redirect all of my mail back to its sender.

     The four of us together in this house will be over in a matter of time as plans develop for this and for that, but for now, we are a Sellwood family. Illegally or not, this apartment is our home and we love it. Over the last months I’ve learned a great deal about what it means to be flexible, what it means to be content with what you have and with where you are. When you live within a community you soon learn how to put aside “necessities” you once maintained for living. The girls this summer called me the princess because I hated sleeping on a twin sized bed (my feet nearly touched the end and you had to sleep like a mummy, who’d blame me?), but I did it (until two girls left and I turned their bed into a mega king sized one!!!). Maybe that was rather princess of me, but now as I’ve slept without an actual bed for the last 6 months, I’ve grown to more fully understand those lessons of our youth, the ones about contentment our mothers and fathers told. When you quit focusing on those things you don’t have, like a bed or dining room chairs, you then see all that you do have and I think that’s what my parents always wanted me to learn. I have a really great airbed that I have to inflate on occasion and I am perfectly content because I know one day I will have those things again, but that time is not now. Besides, who was it that said these material wood and glassed things are what make your house a home anyway? Even if the mailman refuses to give me my deserved mail, it’s still my home and I love it.

     For a while we had a Tom Hanks marathon because everyone loves Tom, but now that we’re out of Tom movies we just settle for Monday movie nights together and sometimes dinner or breakfast or weekend days of hiking. The music and conversations are endless, just like our coffee supply tucked away in the coat and camping closet. We don’t worry about looking silly doing yoga in the living room, because we all do it together and we all look a bit silly. This is our home and I couldn’t be happier.

     I’m not sure when we’ll pack our things again or if this next time it will be four blocks down the street that we move and I’m really not sure when this whole temporary living will turn into a not so temporary thing, but for now I’m perfectly content with walking the same path each morning and having a bed that can travel just as much as I do.

     We are four people and one heron living in one Sellwood apartment and we love it. 

      Chris does assure us that we will have 4 dining room chairs soon so that we can have family dinners together. 

RIP Miller House. We loved you. 

                                                    

                  Family vacation 2011 with the Turners. Bend, OR



Also, for clarification, Henry the Heron does not live with us... just near us. They don't allow pets here. 

Hello.

     In August of 2006 I boarded a one-way flight bound to Portland, OR. Two thousand miles and four and a half years later I find myself here in Portland, a place now as familiar as small town Texas once was.

These last years were what I left Texas in hopes of finding. I've found a home here, home with people once mere acquaintances, now family.  Home in once unfamiliar chilly sky and northwest rain, now old-aged friends.  

     I learned quickly that life does in fact go on without me, a myth I once regarded to be false. Also that my life does not suspend while away. As children, teenagers and even young adults we dream of those days when we’ll be as old as Sam and Cindy until you realize that you are Sam and Cindy and then you see what it’s like to really live as Sam and Cindy. I do not wish to be older than what I am nor do I wish to be anywhere other than where I am. But what I failed to understand when I was younger I am beginning to understand now. For example, did you know that groceries are expensive? Or that it actually costs a reasonable amount of money to go on vacation? Or that you can’t just take off work if you don’t feel up to it? These are the myths I subscribed myself to when I was younger. Even still, as I grew up and slowly assimilated myself with the greater world there were still (and are) things hidden from my view.

     Three years into college, as the novelty of the big city and the independent life began to wear away I learned a little more about the unspoken areas of Sam and Cindy that I never recollected from my dreams.

 As visits home to Texas became less frequent and while the changes there seemed too numerous to count, it was then that I began to realize that life truly does go on without me. And while that may sound a bit naive, it’s an issue that we all face at one point or another especially as we age and our family begins to center around the new life we create for ourselves. While sitting on the 2006 flight next to a brother who continued to make bomb jokes so as to redirect my teary eyes, I was simply looking toward my college life, to the appeal Hollywood presents it to be of course. I knew that life would in fact continue in Texas while I was gone, but I didn’t quite understand the feelings that would soon accompany it. I once never understood what it was like to lose family members without a goodbye or how awful it feels to miss milestones of your cousins, sister’s and brother’s lives. Even those family baseball games and those get togethers for no other reason than because you simply can.  Despite newly found understanding, understanding does not make it easier. It’s this aspect of adulthood that I failed to recognize when I was younger, even when I first began college. So while I miss all of you spread across the states and across that big ol' ocean and while some days may at times seem longer than others, this is the path that I have chosen to take and the Northwest is where I need to be for now.

      I miss everyday encounters with many of you and having a better understanding of each of your lives as you understand them to be. It is hard to be so far away and to maintain communication with all of you, but I want you to know that I love you all and I think about you often. I’m not fond of blogs myself. I like to read other’s posts, but maintenance of my own seems awfully painful. “Those who don’t blog, water their plants,” and my plants would be very healthy had I not had to leave them in Juneau. But I must admit, this technological advancement is beneficial to moms the world over. 

So, I write this all in hopes of providing for you a greater insight into my own life. 

I love you all,

April