Seven years in Portland

I have a hard time accessing that place - the place that sent me hundreds of miles north, away from everything familiar. I'm still hit by twinges of it, but thankfully nothing in my Portland life has ever come close to that gut-twisting need to let the road roll out behind me. It was the music that drew me here, but it's everything I've built that keeps me firmly rooted. I sometimes think about people who treat this like any other city, and I can't help furrowing my brow. Where else could I lead three separate lives, get married in a bar, see cellists playing pop songs alongside singers from beloved local bands? Nowhere, that's where. When people ask "why Portland?" my answer is simple: "We have the culture."

From a midnight blog entry posted the day I left Santa Cruz for good:

In less than 12 hours, I leave. In less than 24 hours, I will no longer be a resident of the state of California. I've settled on a song to play as I drive out of Santa Cruz. I picked Landslide, and I'll imagine myself driving through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, wind in my hair, waiting to see the bright lights of the city on the other side. I still have no idea how I'm going to fit all this crap in my car.

Goodbye Santa Cruz, you haven't always been good to me, but you're in my veins forever. I've had some of the best days of my life here, and some of the worst. I've made great friends and horrible enemies. I've fallen in love a hundred times. I've lived in four different dorm rooms and four different houses; lived with six unique people, shared my life with countless others. Moving forward won't erase the last four years of my life. The memories I have are tattooed on me. They've changed me, perfected me, and made me whole. I don't regret leaving, but even more, I could never regret arriving. No matter how much I've been hurt by this town, part of me has to love it. No matter how many memories, good and bad, are tied to each block of Pacific Ave. and beyond, I have to love it. Maybe I'll be back some day, or maybe I'll want to remember it just as it is- noisy, dirty, frustrating, cramped, and impossible. My kind of place.

Of course it was the right decision; any other choice meant certain doom. I belong in Portland - an indisputable fact made clearer every day. As Weatherly so eloquently put it upon visiting for the first time, Portland is my "dreamy, rainy wonderland."