Moving out to Oregon, wide open

On September 9, 1999 (just over ten years ago!) my best friend, Aryn, and I got into my blue Honda accord in the driveway of my parents’ house in Lansing, Michigan and set off on a journey. It’s strange to look back on that moment. I was doing something adventurous and foolhardy – I knew it – and I was thrilled. We had just graduated from college that May, and we both had gone to school close to home. For me, it was a gut shot of lightning – if I didn't leave now, I never would. And if I stayed – I couldn’t see what I would do if I stayed.

I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know if I would come back. I didn’t know what I wanted to do other than write and find people like me. I wanted to find my generation’s equivalent of Greenwich Village in the 30s. I wanted to find where things were going on, which was most certainly not in Lansing, Michigan. So my best friend and I set off on a road trip. Classic. We had maps and sleeping bags and a tent and a car, and we’d saved up enough money to be on the road for at least two months before we’d need to find a place to live and a job. It seemed like a good plan. My parents and sister waved goodbye from the driveway, and Aryn and I set off on our vision quest.

It was, not surprisingly, hard. Not romantic roll up your sleeves hard, but chilly, self-doubting, running out of money and what the fuck am I doing hard. We were lonely and lost (we had maps but our inner compasses were spinning) and we quickly ran out of things to talk about. We had adventures, yes – but not the kind of adventures that lead to immediate self-knowledge. Or any knowledge at all, other than ‘driving through the Rocky Mountains during a whiteout is fucking terrifying,’ or ‘the entire state of New Mexico is haunted.’ I thought I would have dreams, grand dreams that would reveal my mission to me – but instead I kept dreaming about high school friends I’d lost touch with (dreams, by the way, that were trying to tell me something, just not what I was looking for – but that is a topic for another day).

We got to Portland after 2½ months, and stayed with my aunt and uncle in Yamhill for three weeks while we looked for jobs and an apartment (and thank god for them, because I don’t know what I would have done without their kindness & love). I got hired as a temp and spent the last of my money on work clothes (hiking boots and dirty jeans were not going to cut it) and an apartment in southeast Portland. Then we had to wait two months before we had enough money to buy lamps and furniture. It was December, dark and rainy. We didn’t know anyone in Portland and we couldn’t afford to go out and do anything so we would sit in our plain, carpeted apartment decorated with one Chinese medicine poster we’d bought at Saturday Market, drinking tea and listening to the radio. In the dark. Because we couldn't afford a lamp. During the day sometimes we’d go to a coffee shop and sit and listen to people and try to figure out how to meet them (because on top of everything else we were both introverts and very sensitive people).

For the first time in my life, I was totally on my own. And though I would do it over again, I don’t recommend it. It was terrible. I spent at least six months lonely and poor and cut off from the world and terrified. I flew home for Christmas and cried my eyes out. Then flew back to Portland and cried more.

Of course things did eventually get better. I met people. I got involved in some activities, slowly. I saved up money and figured out where I liked to hang out. After a year I had a wild instinct to move to Missoula, Montana and then a sober voice said – hm, and start this whole process over again? You’re just getting to like Portland. So I stayed. And now I’ve been here ten years.

When I meet other people who have just moved here, I am jealous of the ones who hit the ground running, who come with a game plan and some resources. And when I meet the ones like me I think, oh honey, why are you making it harder on yourself. But how could you know until you’ve done it? I wouldn’t listen to any advice when I was 22 anyway. And I’m not so different now – I still like to learn things the hard way, I still quietly and stubbornly believe in following my gut instinct even when everyone around me thinks it’s stupid. I guess you always look back and wish you could do things over with the knowledge you now have. As the great Rod Stewart says: I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.

Did you know that song is called Ooh La La? I didn’t. Here, maybe it will cheer you up: