Portland: Pulchritude and Play

Oregon, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Yes, I plagiarize (with a one-word addition) a famous poem of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to begin this post only because my first two weeks in Oregon have been so unbelievably rich and chock full of experiences that I will need to count my memories and the Oregonian things with which I am already enamored. The list is quite long, especially given the brevity of my time here.

Susannah and I departed on Sunday morning, August 12, 2012 for Portland. I wore running clothes in the car so that I could take brief jogs every time we stopped, and after 5 five-minute runs, I was able to say that I had a slightly less sedentary day than I normally do while traveling. The car ride was great--Susannah and I spoke about everything relevant about the past, present, and future, and we also listened to three chapters (called "books" by Milton) of Paradise Lost from the CDs that Susannah checked out from the public library in Portland. When we finally arrived to Portland at 1:00 AM on Monday morning, we were exhausted and ready to crash but happy to be home.

Susannah and I live in a small, cute house with Susannah's sister Margaret. We live in Northeast Portland, which is known as being a little less yuppie and a little more fun than the other vicinities of Portland. Our neighborhood is stunningly gorgeous--each house has its own personality, and every yard is full of enormous trees, beautiful flowers, and foliage of other sorts. Our own house has an enormous backyard with a coop and fenced-in yard for the four chickens whose daily eggs are eaten and enjoyed. (After watching a documentary on how terribly chickens are frequently abused in the factory-farm system, seeing four healthy hens that each have names, lots of space to run around, and are fed a healthy diet with no strange growth hormones, I am so happy!) Since I'm talking about environmental causes, let me brag about how incredible Portland and our house is. In Portland, there is curbside recycling for everything, and it's amazing. There is also curbside composting, so we collect all of our organic waste in a separate container that is then composted to become soil. Portland is apparently one of the most biker-friendly cities in the country, and I have put this to the test and found it to be true. There are designated biker lanes on many streets, and there are always lots of bikers around at any given time.

I think it's probably fair to say (though I don't have an official statistic to back it up) that most people in Portland have their own garden or, at the very least, their own fruit-yielding trees. In the brief time that I have been here, I've been given a bag of fresh figs from Susannah's cousin and her husband, a bunch of vegetables (onions, peas, kale, and the like) from Susannah's friend Annie, a box of blackberries and a cucumber salad from some new friends of mine (more later) named Brett and Jana, and probably more that I can't remember right now. People give and show love by sharing their homegrown produce, and it's wonderful. This is one of the most fecund, verdant places I have ever seen, and it's paradisaical. There are fruit trees all around town that are heavy with fruit--you'll literally see plums being squashed on the sidewalk because they have just fallen before anyone could get to them. Our backyard is covered in apples that we haven't been able to eat that have fallen to the ground. I picked a bunch of sun-ripened blackberries along the side of the highway today. It's the Garden of Eden here.

The view of the forested hills from the ascent up
Saddle Mountain

I have been able to have so many adventures here, most of which I owe to Susannah's initiative and taking me to great places in her car. Susannah and I both love to hike, and we have literally gone on so many hikes that I can't keep track of all of them. We did a 5 mile round trip hike up Saddle Mountain, which was my first Oregonian hike and really beautiful. The same day, we did a brief, 2 mile or so trip to a beach on the Pacific Ocean called Indian Beach that was shockingly beautiful. A different day, we went on a 12 (I think) mile round trip hike in the Silver Creek Falls area where we saw more than 10 different waterfalls, each unique, some of which we got to stand behind and experience from the other side. We spent another full day doing doing a 14 mile hike around the crest of Mt. Hood, Oregon's highest point. The hike was called Paradise Park, and since it was difficult to get there, there were hardly no people and we could enjoy the fields of wildflowers all to ourselves. There were so many flowers and bees buzzing around that it literally smelled like honey along much of our hike. It was incredible and an experience unlike any I have had before. Here are a few photos (including the one to the left of this paragraph) from the four hikes I mention here.

The coast here is marvelous, with jagged rocks and pine trees
next to fine sand beaches, like Indian Beach, barely visible
below. This part of the Pacific Northwest is a temperate
rainforest, which I didn't even know existed as a biome.

One of the many falls we saw on the Silver Creek
hike. See the tunnel in the rock behind the waterfall?
We got to stand there on multiple of these and see
the water from behind.

 

A vew of Mt. Adams from near the top of Mt. Hood on the
Paradise Park trail

 

A field of wildflowers near Mt. Hood on the Paradise Park
hike that was so fecund that it smelled just like honey

As you can see, the nature up here is gorgeous. However, I've had a couple of adventures involving people rather than just the outdoors, as well. Susannah and I have been reading a Shakespeare play a week, and we started with Much Ado About Nothing since there was a free production of it in a park. We read it, analyzed it, and then watched it with a couple of her friends, a couple named Jana and Bret. Jana and Bret liked me, so they invited me to hang out the next day. We all went bowling, and it was super fun. I'm still a lousy bowler, but I had a great time and made a couple of new friends. (Mom and Dad, you'll be proud--they both have their MBAs and are in the business field! :) )

In the back are me and Brett. I don't remember the name of the
guy in the front, but he was also really nice to me. I hope
he doesn't stumble across this blog!

I've also had the privilege to sample a little of Portland's cuisine. (I'm not letting myself spend too much "fun" money since I'm not making any money yet, but my inner child doesn't mind spending a little bit for frivolous pursuits.) I ate at an entirely vegan restaurant and had some of the best frito pie of my life made with tofu sour cream, cashew cheese, and some other funky things. I also went to the strangest and coolest ice cream shop I have ever seen in my life called the Salt and Straw. Let me tell you some of the flavor names and give you their descriptions:

1) Summer Corn Buttermilk Sorbet
2) Boke Bowl--"Fish Sauce Caramel makes for sweet and tangy ribbons in Kaffir Lime Leaf and Lemongrass ice cream"
3) Pear with Blue Cheese

I ended up getting a scoop of the latter, and it was really good. I tried a spoonful of the Boke Bowl, but the fish sauce was too much for me. Ice cream with stinky cheese and fruit? I'll give it a go. Ice cream with animal products? No gracias, amigo. I suppose we all have our limits. I also discovered the best bread on the planet (right after Mom's homemade wheat bread after fast Sunday, of course), and it's called "Dave's Killer Bread." Read this story on the bread bag:

"I was a four-time loser before I realized I was in the wrong game. 15 years in prison is a pretty tough way to find oneself, but I have no regrets. This time around, I took advantage of all those long and lonely days by practicing my guitar, exercising, and getting to know myself--without drugs. To my utter amazement, I started liking what I was seeing. It's been said adversity introduces a man to himself and I found this to be true. If I had not suffered, I can safely assure you that you would not be reading the label on a loaf of my killer bread. A whole lot of suffering has transformed an ex-con into an honest man who is doing his best to make the world a better place...one loaf of bread at a time."

His bread is all organic, all natural, and so scrumptious. The list of ingredients is short, with everything on there a recognizable item found in nature (there aren't preservatives, so you have to eat it pretty quickly), and the only reason some of his loaves have long lists of ingredients is because one of his breads contains 21 grains! It's so tasty, and it's worth paying a little extra for.

Anyway, Portland is funky, quirky, hip, and gorgeous. People are idiosyncratic, iconoclastic, and really nice. I feel completely at home here. I'll stop writing for now, but expect more posts about other happenings in the chapter of my life I spend here in the Pacific Northwest. I'll tell you soon about my job (yes, I got a job!) and the other neat things happening around me.

Coming Home

I want to begin this post with an enormous thank you to my incredible family. The few weeks I spent in Laramie were not merely enriched but were rather filled with happiness and emotional resilience only because of them. My parents, Larry and Jenny, generously offered me the guest room of their home and included me in their daily schedule, meals and all, without batting an eyelid. My siblings still living at home, Amy and Josh, instantly integrated me into their lives and kept me fulfilled and growing with the activities that we did together. The three other siblings that live near Laramie but not at the parents' house, Maria, Laura, and Paul, all supported me and treated me as if no time had elapsed since the last time we spoke in person. And Carolyn, who lives in Massachusetts, laughed with and listened to me on the phone and will be getting a visit from me in person as soon as I can arrange it so I can give her my love in person. I love my family so much.

Coming home to Wyoming was incredible. Although I didn't experience too much "reverse culture shock," there were certainly some things about the United States that I had forgotten. In the Denver International Airport, I was shocked to see how obese a few people were. The average American is probably pretty similar to the average Spaniard in terms of weight--pretty healthy, if carrying a few extra pounds. But the rates of obesity are very different between our two countries, and that was instantly apparent to me. I also noticed how wide streets are in Wyoming and how much water we put in our toilets. The little things really stuck out to me, which I found comical.

There was a collection of things that I really missed while in Spain, and it felt great to be back with them. I missed my Norton Anthology of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and I've already dived into it with Much Ado About Nothing, a famous comedy of the Bard's. I also missed my pull-up bar and used it a few times after runs I took along the ridge above the Mormon Church in Laramie, a stretch of land that is slowly being developed as a residential neighborhood. I also had missed my bike while in Spain and rode it around town, loving the feel of the pedals beneath my feet and the burn in my thighs as I pumped away. It was wonderful to be reunited with old things, and opening up old boxes of clothes was like receiving a whole new wardrobe. It was like Christmas Day in July. :)

I spent my time in Laramie doing many fulfilling things. Amy and I had generated an enormous list of movies to watch while together in Spain and France, and we were quite systematic in picking them off, one by one, night by night. We watched movies related to France (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Man in the Iron Mask), a classic thriller movie that is one of my all-time favorites (Minority Report), as well as a host of chick-flicks (Sense and Sensibility, Eclipse, New Year's Eve). They were all great, and it was fun to enjoy cinema with my sister. She and I also studied vocabulary and talked about strategies for the ACT and college applications, and I know that she will have enormous success and will be able to do whatever it is she wants with her life. She is so talented and bright, and the world is her oyster. Josh and I were really good about going to the Recreation Center to work out our abdominal muscles (since Josh really wants washboard abs) and to work on our swimming strokes (since Josh is going to join the swim team next year). It was so fun to teach Josh how to swim different strokes, how to breathe properly, how to flip-turn, how to do a breaststroke pull-out, how to start off the blocks, and other things of the sort. He's a fast learner, and he'll love doing the swim team with Laramie's Tom Hudson. The entire family also watched the Olympics almost every night, cheering for US wins, gasping and sighing as people fell off the pommel horse, and enjoying this once-every-four-years spectacle.

A beautiful cake made by Mary Centrella, my brilliant,
supportive, hilarious red-headed friend who spent
quality time with me and helped me process a difficult
relationship

From left to right: my mother, my youngest brother Josh,
my father, my younger sister Amy, and my older sister Laura,
all some of the most amazing people you'll ever meet

I was also able to do a couple of things to support the Fulbright mission of fostering mutual understanding between nations, a creed that I take seriously and intend to implement throughout the rest of my life when possible. The first activity was simply to make a Spanish repast for my family, which was a success. I started cooking late Sunday morning and didn't leave the kitchen until dinner was finished. I made chilled gazpacho (a cold, pureed vegetable soup), a tortilla (made with potato, onion, and egg in Spain), a chicken and vegetable paella as the main dish, virgin sangría to drink, and arroz con leche for dessert. Some of the rice in the paella was still hard, but in general, the family enjoyed the meal, and it was so fun to explain the different dishes and talk more about Spain, a country that I love and miss. We were also able to host David, Félix, and Kelly for a day while David and Félix were in the States on vacation. We made them a traditional American meal that was a really tasty chicken barbecue with baked beans, corn on the cob, green bean casserole, A&W root beer, and other "all-American" things. They loved the meal, and they loved my family. My family was so open to them and treated them with warm hearts. It was beautiful to see how much mutual respect they all had one for another. And it was great finally to get to host Spaniards in my country and not the other way around.

From left to right, again: Kelly Moore, the best roommate
a guy could ask for while in Madrid; David, a screenwriter;
Félix, David's boyfriend and a Spanish language and literature
teacher; and me, rocking my Spain jersey to wear my pride on
my sleeve

Ali working her tush off, making rounds of calls and assiduously
documenting everything that she does in their computer database

While staying in Laramie, I was also fortunate to get to make two important trips. One of them was down to Aurora, Colorado, to see one of my best friends, Alison Ganem. Ali is working for the Obama campaign, and though she is happy to be aiding a political campaign in which she believes, she is being worked so many hours a day 7 days a week that there is literally hardly time for anything else. I felt so bad for her and how frazzled she said she was feeling, and I was overwhelmed with gratitude that my life isn't so hectic and that my jobs have never been so all-consuming. She and I canvassed together and updated voter registration in a parking lot in which 75% of the people spoke Spanish as a first language. It was so great to get to use my Spanish to help documented immigrants become politically active. Spending time with Ali warmed my heart, as always, and once she was finally done working at 10:30 PM on a Sunday evening, we went to IHOP and talked like old chums over a breakfasty dinner. I can't wait for her to get her life back after the elections in November.

I was also fortunate enough to get to borrow my mom's car to drive to the western part of Wyoming and down into Salt Lake City and Provo. In western Wyoming, I spent the afternoon with my sister Maria. She is thriving there, and it was wonderful to see her. Her husband, Clark, is re-tiling their house, and it looks great. Their house is spacious and beautiful, and their backyard is enormous, leaving lots of space for their energetic dog, Pepper. Their children, Will, Rosie, and Adalyn, are all beautiful, bright, and very kind to their Uncle Bob. And Maria is as great as ever, growing as a mother, wife, and independent woman, continuing to find the best life for her. We had really good, healing talks, and it was truly a miracle to get to spend the time that we had together. I then drove into Deer Valley where I spent the evening with the Johnsons and with my old friend John Bonner. The Johnsons invited me to a delicious buffet dinner and then to see a show called "Broadway Rocks!" in which the Utah Symphony Orchestra performed Broadway classics and classic rock hits with Broadway stars. The show was phenomenal and included "The Wizard and I" from Wicked, a couple of songs from The Phantom of the Opera, and a chilling version of "I Will Always Love You" that was literally as good as Whitney Houston (which I thought was impossible) and brought me to tears. The show was out of this world, and John and I then went back to the Johnsons' "cabin" in Deer Valley where I spent the night in a room larger than some peoples' entire house. This "cabin" was one of the most opulent buildings I have ever seen and included at least 5 master bedroom suites, a fiber optic bar in the kitchen, a ceiling of constellations and shooting stars, a full exercise room, an indoor waterfall, a cave shower, and other amenities. It was ridiculously elegant and such a pleasure to spend an evening there and then to speak with Peter in the morning about law school and my different career options.

The Cowboy Suite, where I slept, which had a balcony
that opened to an incredible view.

I also got to spend more time with John, an old friend from BYU, as well as Julia Potter, a good friend from BYU who is now engaged and looking beautiful and healthy in general. Lastly, and very importantly, I drove down to Provo to spend the evening with Dr. George Handley. Dr. Handley is one of my greatest heroes, both academically and personally. I have a link to his blog, and I encourage everyone to check it out. This man is brilliant, compassionate, and very intentional about living his Mormon ethics to make this world a healthier place. He and I spoke for hours in the comfort of his beautiful home in Provo. We talked about our lives, he gave me advice about my profession and my future, and he commended me for not being a purist when it came to environmentalism. It was a fruitful, enjoyable conversation, and I regret so much that we won't be able to study together in a professor-student relationship ever again because of some limiting factors. Nevertheless, we will always be close, and he will always be a role-model and mentor of mine. I'm so grateful to have him in my life.

Everything about being home was extremely positive except for some emotional entanglements that I accidentally got roped into with some manipulative individuals and my ex-boyfriend. It got particularly ugly and sad for me to deal with once or twice during my time in Wyoming, but my family was entirely there for me and helped me find the strength to push through despite a lot of shock, disillusionment, and occasional sorrow. If anything, this disagreeable situation was a reminder to me  to treat others with dignity and respect, to be intentional about romantic relationships, and to desire always nothing but the best for oneself and others. Though I felt really confused and wounded by what happened, I think the clouds have dispersed and I've re-found my happiness and confidence.

Once again, thank you to my amazing family for filling my days with joy and for giving me a place to stay. It was such a pleasure to catch up with my loved ones again and spend some time in the city that I will always call home. I miss you all and will write about my adventures in Oregon soon. (Yes, they've already begun!)