Seasons of April.: June 2011

I heard a fisherman once say that to understand your home you must first leave it. May it be a home in West Texas on a dusty corner street, may it be yourself, may it be those innate characteristics that we each possess or may it be a little apartment on a Sellwood Street. And perhaps we will never understand ourselves and perhaps we may never understand why it is that we must first leave ourselves to only find a purer form of me and of you. And maybe we will just never understand anything.

With every sunset I find myself with a greater understanding of yesterday and of all my yesterdays.

I think it was somewhere in the last 5 years that Portland became home.

Today as I sit in a quiet neighborhood under the bluest of skies, I reflect on those 5 years. I suppose the most accurate description of them is provided through a mere smile, shrug and distant stare.

These last few months have been defined by great change for many of the people I love. It seems that it's now that all are going off to pursue great things. The Turner's are pursuing dreams on the East Coast, the Adam's, Karah, Chris and so many more are doing what they've been anxiously awaiting for themselves and for their families. So it's hard to be sad that so much of the "normalcy" in our lives is changing, but that's life.

I suppose my purpose in writing is to say thank you to my family spread across the Pacific Northwest. These past few days I have felt an immense amount of love, support and all things accompanied in those. You have each blessed my life more than I could ever describe, repay or thank you for. I wish you all best wishes in your net endeavors throughout the Northwest and across the globe. You all made Portland a home for me. Thank you. I love each of you and will miss you.

I'm not sure when I will understand Wrightwood, but I do know that my home is here now, in a little A-frame house shared in the company of two boys I have also missed over this last year.

This is the start of something good... for all of us.

With love, April

(minus the snow)

A faded hopscotch grid spanned the entire block this evening, proof of the 80 degree Saturday well spent by many.

Last week I house-babysat for my old neighbors, below my old house. 4 new boys have moved in to what is now their Miller Street home. I gave them one suggestion for how to spend their summer in the house, how to remove the screens and climb onto the roof to enjoy the best summer breeze in one of the best summer trees. They hadn't thought of removing the screens for access and their smiles and beaming eyes told me they were grateful for the suggestion. Jon and Nicole’s bedroom was directly below my first room in the house, so I was excited to awake to the sunrise view of Mt Hood. However, I forgot the minor detail of being 12 feet lower so the sunrise view of the neighbor’s roof threw me off. I did realize in the short time that I stayed that you can hear everything that goes on in the upstairs apartment. Immediately after Jon and Nicole’s return I apologized for any and all the noise we may have made in the years living above them. I took on the role of mother for the week to care for Simone and Harper. Simone is an attention-craving, vocally proclaiming kitty who will give anything for a pet on the back. Harper or more often pronounced, “Oh Harper,” because he’s just that kind of dog is a 12-year-old, hundred pound pup suffering from severe arthritis who listens to NPR daily and frequents Grand Central Bakery. I learned this week what I believe parenting to be similar to; I awoke each morning to first feed Harper and give him his Glucosamine along with the 4 other drugs prescribed for his achy body, then we’d go on our hour long walk, I guess I should say Harper walked me, to sniff out every inch of the street and to sometimes chase the geese. I don’t get baby fever like others my age; I just get puppy fever, so it was nice to get my fix for the month and enough to make me realize that my life cannot accommodate a dog right now. But it was still nice. My mom has always called me the “Doggy Whisperer,” but I don’t think she realized how much human food I’d slip dogs to get on their good side. Harper and I were quite the pair though, so there must be some truth to her statement. He’d do that puppy dog smile for me when I came home and on one occasion jumped four paws off the ground for me when I returned (Jon and Nicole both said they’d never seen him in his old age do this), so I took it as his puppy approval. When I locked the house for the final time his bark echoed throughout Sellwood, which I think meant “thank you” and that we’d be friends for a while.

It’s things like this that I am going to miss.

Tonight I’m back down the street. Chris is in Africa. Saryl has moved to her new home, to a room that looks a little more permanent. Ean and I are left here to watch as slowly things disappear into boxes and into other homes. The room Saryl and I shared is now bare and the bathroom drawers are empty. Long walks home like the one this evening and as slowly whatever remains in this bare room find their way to a designated spot of a suitcase I begin to realize that my time here this winter is coming to its end, but good thing it stayed so long (and I say that with a slight degree of sarcasm because it has been far too long of a winter and one should never wear a down coat in June). Next week I’ll be moving to Wrightwood, CA to live and work among good friends. I suppose I could get a job using the degree I worked so hard on, but I have the rest of my life to do that or to not do that, so for now I will enjoy working outdoors and save that other work for later. I’m usually the planner, the list maker of the bunch, but with this I’ve given up planning because if planning worked I’d be living in Spain right now and the closest I am to that is Google earth. So for now, I’m moving to California and that’s the only plan I need.

It’s been a good winter here, a good, good winter.