For context, this was written while in Portland this past week. Enjoy.
There’s something comforting about the transitory nature of the dining area of this Grand Central bakery in Multnomah Village, a neighborhood outside of Portland. The interior could be placed anywhere in the US, and you wouldn’t necessarily be able to detect, at first glance, where you are. The light pinewood tables, slightly patinaed with a layer of stickiness, implies the passing of time and age of this place; while the curated, yet random pictures of berries and farm animals make it feel almost dystopian. As if hung there to lure each patron into a false sense of comfort, as though recognizable, but foreign. Maybe it’s by design; wherever you go, there you are. The lighting gives off a harshness; never cozy enough to keep people from lounging for too long, but never so repugnant that you would never frequent the establishment.
It’s in my own nature to wander into places like this, and imagine reconstructing them to my liking. Adorn new light bulbs with sconces, ax the overhead lighting in the seating area, feature photos or art from local artists in the neighborhood, deep clean the tile, throw down a rug, etc. All changes would be done to my own appeal; a churning of my inner armchair business person. Like I know anything about running a business.
This notion of trying to change, of focusing on the fixing of things, can be extrapolated to other extensions of my life. If I focus my energy on other problems, then I firmly believe my own issues can be worked out indirectly. Like a puzzle intricately in step with another, cogs rotating other gears, influencing the decisions being made. When working a puzzle in real life, you’re solving the riddle in your head.
While I’ll save my own reservations about him, it’s said Walt Disney rode around on his backyard railway for months, chewing over the dream that would eventually bring Disneyland to fruition in 1955. As romantic as this notion may be, the reality is often far from the truth. If anything, my attempts at solving other issues are just long distractions from the problems surfacing and bubbling within my own body, and my blunt refusal to face truths head on.
Even within this Grand Central (a local institution of a bygone Portland era), exists an inner displacement of visiting Portland - the home of my youth, and home in my heart. The feeling is almost unwelcoming, as though I am a shell of myself. Desperation clings to a far gone time, escaping through the cracks in my fingers. Attempts are made to cup the remaining memories, as though they hold together a semblance of my life. They do, and they always will. But those moments are lost to time, and there’s nothing to gain back from holding on to them in the way I do now. The good old days, or nostalgia.
This past week I flew to Portland because of another death in the family. My grandmother, while inches away from reaching the age of 99, passed a few days prior to her birthday. While any excuse to visit the city is always welcomed, this felt like I should be more somber, than excited, over the chance of returning. Though, as my therapist has said numerous times, even feelings are far from binary, and co-exist simultaneously.
(Funny aside - we all believed my Grandmother would be turning 100 this year, and began planning accordingly. Incredible! 100 years! Turns out, as we learned from my uncle, she was actually turning 99. Apparently, she had accidentally written the wrong year of birth on her marriage certificate, which was used extensively throughout her government documents. My Uncle found this out only when having difficulty filling her taxes.)
The initial days of my arrival were spent seeing family, including my father, who flew in from Phoenix, along with my older sister. We rented a house out in SE Portland in the Belmont neighborhood, and had a few enthralling days of frequenting my father’s old breakfast haunt, the Original Pancake House, general exploration of the nearby sights, and seeing extended family. A short reunion of sorts, but necessary, especially during this ambivalent time of the year. The whole time, though, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something felt off.
Last year, whispers of moving back to Portland in the spring or summer began to sprout. New York had worn its welcome out on me, even within the first few months of moving there in autumn of 2021. After absolutely falling in love with the city in 2018, while I was living my consulting life, dreams of returning were planted if the opportunity ever presented itself. Over two years of living in North Carolina during the Pandemic had my body itching for a change, for escape. The opportunity knocked, and I answered the call to return to NYC.
How quickly the dream faded into discontent. The burnout associated with the loss of my career, and then sudden death of my mother, were obvious major contributors. A full-scale invasion also occurred in a country severely dear to me. For a long time, I held this belief that NYC, in all its overwhelming chaos, was an inhibitor of my growth. As though I had moved there too soon, at such a tumultuous time, that my body and spirit would forever be stunted by existing/living in such a place. Simultaneously, I wanted so hard to belong, to feel connected to the heartbeat of the city. Those inklings of want were dispersed throughout my days, amongst the chaotic monotony of living among 8 million people, but the weight felt too much to bear overall.
During this disorienting period, my mind sought the safe harbor of a shelter I’ve known my whole life; a place of comfort and stability. An Eden where I knew the roads, knew the restaurants, and where the people I’ve known for a good chunk of my life thrived and could be used as an anchor during this time. I saw Portland then, as I saw it 10 years ago, as a place to restart.
In December of 2013, after suffering through a harrowing breakup in Vermont, I shuffled back to Portland with my tail between my legs, searching for somewhere to plant my feet. My parents were still living in the Portland area at the time, and what better Christmas gift than the announcement of their 25 year old son moving back in with them.
Portland provided stability. Prior, I had shuttled myself all over the country, living quite the nomadic lifestyle post-attending brewing school in Germany a few years prior. Now back in Portland, I reconnected with old friends, made new ones, and began to thrive within my brewing career. Portland was a launching pad for my rebuilt confidence, eventually propelling me towards brewing in Ukraine. Of course, little did I know at the time, those couple of developmental years in Portland were the stability and happiness I didn’t know were necessary to my overall well-being.
Returning to present day Portland, and to my reflections within this Grand Central Bakery, those romanticisms about Portland, and what I believed to be a perpetual home here, have changed.
Whether with family, family friends, or even my own friends, a variation of one question was inevitable: “So, are you still moving back here?”. While perfectly innocent and understandable in its nature, the question would leave me high and dry, desperately grasping for some form of an constantly evasive answer. I didn’t have the answers they sought, nor the insight myself. In all honesty, I had been avoiding the question entirely.
For the last few years, I’ve unapologetically pushed my anti-Phoenix agenda on my father, in hopes of having him back in Portland amongst family, friends, and an overall better quality of life. But I knew he would never take the bait unless I were to move back to Portland first.
Until recently, it never occurred to me to ask my father if he was happy in Phoenix, or if he would feel happier in Portland. His answer of feeling “comfortable” in Phoenix was disarming. An awareness dawned on me then; my father was a pawn in my unruled decision to move back to Portland. I had no excuse to use for moving back; it was all simply whether I wanted to, or not.
My father and sister took off a few days into my week-long stay. I was cognizant to focus the remainder of time in Portland was dedicated to giving myself some breathing room, while seeing dear old friends. How quickly the time spent alone turned introspective. Within the myriad asks of my moving back to Portland, a chasmic layer was unraveled underneath. Among the social gatherings of my friends, I couldn’t help but feel like moving back to Portland was framing my perspective, viewing every interaction with a juxtaposition towards the cliche question of: Would I be truly happy if I moved back?
Mulling over this enigma gave it more weight than necessary, and I began to liken the question to a piece in the game of Tetris. Lodged in an incorrect position, more questions, like pieces, appeared on the screen. What is left for me to gain from moving back to Portland, other than the possibilities of comfort, community, and stability? Are those necessities just a grander illusion? Would I not be facing the same challenges in Portland as I am in New York currently? Or am I just running away from the problems I’m terrified to face head on? The questions, like pieces, began to compound and bury me. The culmination of my own grief over observations of this place which holds such a delicate structure in my heart, and the reconciliation of its entirety, was the genesis of an inner spiral.
Within this structure of longing exists the friendships I’ve held for decades now. The people who have shaped who I am and have been with me through the thickest of times in my life. We’ve been sounding boards for our troubles, and held our grasp together through the rollercoaster of life. It wouldn’t be without some grand epiphany to believe our friendships have changed as well.
As the struggles of finding footing within a career I consistently question will ever pan out, my friendships feel as though we’re at different moments in our lives. When this outlook is overlaid like a translucent slide over my own life, I feel as though we’re at different places in time, no longer walking hand in hand down the same path. At times, like I’m an obstacle in their path, or a burden if expressing my grievances to them.
We all have different lives now. The way we interact is through the gaze of an opaque glass wall. Some of this is due to distance, and some is due to just, well, life. Moving in different directions, dealing with ever changing, ever shifting tide of it all.
Our time isn’t shared over frequenting the dive bars or late night restaurants, playing frisbee in the park or biking around town, but fleeting moments with children in tow as we explore the local labyrinth of a children’s indoor playroom, or the flashing festivities of the Oregon Zoo Lights, where the only animals awake at this time are the zooming bodies of toddlers. They’re the moments of tagging along as a third as they go Christmas tree picking, or knocking out errands on a Sunday afternoon.
This is not at all to say I’m supercilious or carry a disdain for these choices - as I told my friend, I’ll take what I can get when it comes to hanging out with her - it’s just different. To no degree do I hold contempt or anger against my friends. It’s dealing with how this structure and impact of how these changes are handled against my own life; it’s the frustration of my acceptance of this change that I find the most difficult to breathe in and carry.
The experience has changed. And as it should; that’s just life. But within these feelings exists a dichotomy. A yearning for those “simpler times” when our schedules felt less conflicted, where randomly showing up at someone’s house meant hanging out and being present in each other’s company for the whole day.
Finding a constant amidst all this noise seemed impossible. For a longtime, Portland was this constant. The people and places within its metaphorical walls were a place of reprieve and solace. But now I feel nothing but an alien when existing within all of Portland’s uprooted sidewalks. A stranger in a land I once knew and loved so passionately, so fervently. The city I would proudly exclaim to come from when asked about my birthplace. A stable “rock” I could rely on to hold me close and welcome me whenever I needed a reset. But now I don’t believe it could be that. To some degree, one needs to let go of the past, to see into the future.
My mind is trying to grieve not only the loss of my grandmother, but the compounded death of my mother all snowballed together during this time. It occurred to me this afternoon that I have no living grandparents. And only one parent left. The cruel hands of time are directly in front of me, pointing to days on a calendar, alerting me of my own mortality, and the mortality of those around me.
In a way, it feels like I’m grieving the loss of a loved one all over again. I’m grieving the loss of a time that no longer exists. Grappling with this reality is difficult. This truth feels somewhat harder than dealing with the loss of my mother, or grandmother. The place I’ve come to rely on so much has changed, and will never come back.
The same had to be done, and still currently is happening, with my brewing career, specifically Ukraine. Dreams of Ukraine would frequent my head for so often after I left, I would often kick myself for leaving. As though I had made the biggest mistake, and given up everything beautiful I once had, for what? What exactly did I trade it in for? Did I make a mistake by leaving? It’s easy to fool yourself into believing the grass is constantly greener, or romanticize the past, without remembering how much of the ground underneath became contaminated and uninhabitable over time.
In Portland, I feel like I would be coming back to a place of skewed comfort. It’s familiar, yet out of place. I know the guts and roots of the town, but the entities and surface streets have changed. A ship of Theseus, George Washington’s axe. If everything has been replaced, is it still the same city? And would it accept me back? Would those fading blinking lights adorning the radio towers upon the West Hills answer my call? Could I gaze at them and go “I’m back, again.” and they answer “You left us, again.” and I reply “And I may leave again someday, but for now I need a place to rest.” Rest. Can I rest again, can I rest again?
Before arriving at this Grand Central Bakery, I took a mid-day walk in Cooks Butte park in Lake Oswego. This natural space has always carried a luring sense of calm and reprieve amongst its giant douglas fir trees and lush green sword ferns, especially when I was younger. A dense layer of fog had unexpectedly crept in during my trek to the top of the butte, enveloping the whole treeline. Suddenly, I felt all at once completely alone. Isolated amongst my thoughts, I reckoned with the spiral commandeering my mind. Conjuring joyous moments of my once life in Portland grew into shedding tears for this past, for those I’ve lost, for the beautiful lives of the people intertwined in mine, and for me.
As I descended down the opposite side of the Butte, the sun broke through the ethereal fog in patches. Through this transition, I was reminded of “mono no aware”, the Japanese idiom loosely translated to “an empathy of things”, or the fleeting awareness of impermanence. How beautiful it was to look back and bear witness to all of this growth, development, and the many lives encountered. Returning to my therapist’s words on emotions, promotion of a paradoxical mindset is all at once shedding the past, while simultaneously containing a confident apprehensive fear about the future.
My belonging to any one specific place is ambitious, yet ambiguous. I feel like the coffee shop, in perpetual transitory operation, or a plane, circling the airport waiting for somewhere to land that accepts me. But I realize now this doesn’t happen overnight, or by waiting around. The experience has to grow and come naturally, and putting myself out there is a first step. Building a community, and feeling confident in my footing, is growth. Growth is letting go of my past, and planting my feet on the present. Growth is acceptance of where I am right now, and turning my gaze towards the future. But not too much, just enough.
During my trans-atlantic nomadic life in my 20s into my early 30s, an adage developed in conversation between a good friend of mine: “Whenever you move to a new place, it takes at least a year to really feel connected, to place seeds, to feel the beginning of belonging. Anything else during that year prior are just steps taken towards this destination, disguised as frustrations.” I was wise, once in a lifetime ago.
Before my father departed on this trip, we ate dinner together at Pho Hung off 82nd St, after diving into decadent dessert at Papa Haydn’s in Sellwood. Together we reminisced over our opinions and greater feelings on Portland as a whole. We both agreed that even over the past couple years, Portland has employed a new identity.
While I lamented on how the pandemic could have been the essential harbinger for the change, I waxed rhetorically in curiosity; how much of the attributed change in Portland was only the projection from the inner turmoil I was facing.
My spirit is being pulled in different directions; simultaneously grappling with the hard truth of returning to a life that no longer exists, contrasted against my will and desire for stability in NYC. I was pining for two places at once, while seemingly nowhere within either of them.
Letting go of my Portland past will only help me feel a sense of belonging to where I am physically. I’ve been in the NYC area for over 2 years, and with everything that has transpired, only now do the pieces feel like they’re beginning to manifest and take shape. Brooklyn feels more like home with every passing day, and remnants of a community are being built with every class, postings within online groups, or meetups attended. All I’m searching for now, is some semblance of the same community found in Portland so many years ago.
Saying my goodbyes to the past, to the Portland I knew, while still relishing in the wonderful friendships I have, is difficult. If I were to return to Portland at this moment, I would be moving back for the wrong reasons. Maybe at some point, the reasons will be right. “I’ll always have Portland”, may not hold the weighty words it once did, for so long.
Everything, given time.
Goodbye from the Grand Central Bakery. They’ve graciously let me extend my stay past closing, and a December dusk has set upon the sleepy neighborhood of Multnomah Village, once again.
Happy winter solstice,
Cory
PS: As much as I would love to take credit for the title, the original is from the comedy record How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All by the Fireside Theatre, as found in my father’s record collection. After discovering the record during a Christmas trip to Phoenix, the title resonated with me, and has lived rent free in my head since.
