Sex, shoes, and salt

Never Done/Tshuve: Walked with Kara through my old Portland neighborhood
Never Done: Had a Portland date with Kathleen and Dana
Never Done: Waited 45 minutes for a table for a late lunch in a Portland restaurant (Tasty and sons)
Never Done: Ate a bacon cheeseburger (at Tasty)
Never Done: Witnessed the gentrification of the Mississippi neighborhood (salt, shoes, and sex)
Tshuve: Games and pizza with Rupert and Scott

This is a hard post to write. On the one hand, as you can see from the list of stuff I did that I clearly had a wonderful day. Josh and I saw some of my closest, deepest friends in both new and old haunts. We had a short walk with Kara, who I've known since the early 1990s, who is one of my best friend's (Ellen) best friends, but this was our first time getting together without the our other friend, or without a big group of people. Then we got to have lunch at a super hipster new Portland restaurant located of all places in the old Oregon Food Bank building, eat my first ever bacon cheeseburger (I ended up picking out the bacon but it was a spectacularly wonderful burger) and wander along the surreally revamped (ie., gentrified, ie., a store that sells salt and a store that sells sex toys in the same block of buildings, where there used to be -- well, there used to be people) Mississippi street with Kathleen and Dana, who I set up, and who are really, really enjoying each other's company, and who have started calling themselves "girlfriends." (Do I get to count their Never Done experiences if I was the person who put them together?) Then, we got to go over to Rupert and Scott's house to play games and eat pizza and laugh like I miss like crazy.

On the other hand, I already miss the friends I have gotten to see -- and wish I could double, triple, quadruple, or megalotteryduple my time with them. I have only seen Carol, whose house I am staying at, for one minute on my first morning here, as she was heading to work and I was heading to the bathroom. I haven't seen Rupert and Scott in 18 months, and a couple hours feels like criminal. Same with everyone else I am seeing. And I didn't even tell a bunch of people I was coming to town, and that feels really crummy, for all of us. I adore the people who I didn't call, and my heart bursts with how much I would love to see them, but there literally aren't the hours in a week. I fantasize about moving back, but hesitate to talk about it because I don't want to either appear insincere, or ungrateful, or to lay bare my deep geographic indecisiveness. So when I visit, I end up experiencing Portland as an intense longing for something I actually have in the moment, but know will be gone from me again in just a few days. Something that will stay without me, that will grow and change and expect me to do the same wherever else it is I am living.

This week's mide is Righteousness: what is hateful to you, do not do to others. This makes me think even more than I already do about how my trips are for my friends. Part of the reason I don't call everyone is because I don't want to have dates that feel rushed to people -- as in, "Hi, it's wonderful to see you. I have to get to my next date now." On the other hand, I know it must really suck for people I really love, and love me, if I don't see them at all when I visit. This trip is the first time I didn't overbook myself, and still I feel overbooked and rushing off from one person to see another. How do I solve something like this? Is there such a thing as too many dear friends? If I am honest, am I being responsible to my friends? If not, what are the possible solutions? Maybe I need to take longer trips here -- which is theoretically possible, since I am a freelancer, and could work from here when I am not collaborating with other people in New York (which I often am.) If I would move back here, I would leave behind my entire family on the east coast, not to mention all my east coast friends. Everyone who knows how much I go back and forth about this know that this is a narrative that runs frequently in my head. I think the truth is that it's an unsolvable puzzle -- that I and my friends and family can't in fact, have everything, and that I have to choose the best solution, and then set up systems that help us all see each other as fully as we possibly can. Or I wonder if it's not I who should choose the best solution, but we -- a committee of sorts -- a representational body from east coast and west, from New York and New England, from family and friends who have a real say in the solution.

I have no idea if that's a good idea, but it is at least a new idea.