More love letters to Portland...

I love this city because it keeps me awake at night.

It's been a bit of a puzzle trying to find a job up here, but I'm still searching, still Starbucking... I met with the head of the Graduate English program at PSU to discuss my future. We are like minded and he was kind to me... I'm afraid of the years it will take, but not afraid of the choice to go back to school or the commitment to this place... I feel very much at home here.

It is good to have friends who live two blocks from my door, and good to walk to work at 4am, and good to take the dog window shopping on lazy afternoons. It is good to watch a thousand swifts zipper themselves into a chimney, and good to see the same faces on the same corners, and good to watch movies at the pub down the street in the middle of the night. It is good to feel fall descending, and good to litter the streets with posters and chalk messages and know they will reach the intended recipient. It is good to have a pattern... to walk a path into a concrete sidewalk, to follow in your own footsteps, to feel at home. It is good to be here.


i miss my family, but it is good to know that I can feel myself here, feel like myself here... to write my name on the sidewalk and know where I belong.