Polar bear plunge

Never Done: Went to Inner City Hot Tubs at Common Ground, not inner city, and no longer at Common Ground

When I left Portland, I didn't really think I was leaving. I thought I was going to grad school, and then coming right back. Those of you who know me well know that I still feel like I'm coming right back, or that I should, or at least that I want to. But this isn't a post about that decision, which everyone has heard far too much about. I have been storing heavy items in good friends' basements and garages throughout Portland and Beaver Creek for 8 years (thank you Barbara & Peter, Carol, Diane, and Scott & Rupert for holding onto them for me for so long.) A good friend might be driving an empty truck cross country, so I decided it was time to get it all in the same place, in case the stars align for her to take it with her.

I looked up storage facilities in Portland, and found that in addition to the megaliths, that there are some local storage companies with great reviews. But it was New Year's weekend, and most of those places were home ringing in the new year. So I reserved a small (5x5) locker at Public Storage, for a hefty $72/month. When I mentioned this to Kathleen, she immediately offered that I could store all my stuff in her basement. "That's what basements are for!" she said. And it's true. When I had my basement, I had lots of people's stuff in it. So Josh and Kathleen and I spent the afternoon driving around Portland with borrowed cars (thanks Kathleen, Chris, and Scott) and collected my dad's wine press, the beautiful door that Eric and Stu made in the late 1980's, my compound miter saw and three-foot level, my antique Singer sewing machine, and a few other valuables, and we shlepped them down into Kathleen's basement, where they will now live, reunited, until I can get them. Kathleen gets extra credit for this, because not only did she give me this space, and not only did she loan me her car, but she walked away from the Red Zone, where she was watching 7 football games at once, to drive around and help me.

What do you do after you shlep cast iron equipment with no gloves in 28 degree weather? You go to the hot tubs. Jensi and Josh and I had planned to take a walk, but it was cold out, and I was underdressed, and I really wanted to get in a soak at my favorite old hippie hot tubs. So we called, got a time slot, and drove over. Only ... they weren't there. How can hot tubs move? Using our trusty iPhones, we uncovered the mystery of the missing moisture: they had moved to NE 33rd, near New Seasons, near the Kennedy School. So we crossed town and found them -- in what looks like an old medical building -- not as rustic or homey as the old place, and the Genesis Juice is pasteurized now and sold in plastic bottles instead of glass, but they still stock the showers with Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap, and it's still co-ed and clothing optional.

While we soaked, I mentioned that I had wanted to do a polar bear plunge this year, and that maybe this was the (second, after my ice water finger plunge) alternative -- hot water in outdoors in sub-freezing weather. Jensi had a different association with the polar bear club. She said it's the name of a group of people who search for their adoptive parents. Or maybe it's people who are searching for the children that they released for adoption. (I couldn't find it on a google search, so now I'm wondering if it's something different.) Either way, it made me think about the adoption process I'm going through now, and once again take some ethical comfort in the fact that when you adopt an older child, they have some agency in the process: they are usually not disconnected from their birth family or their culture of origin, and they can ultimately decide whether or not they want to be adopted by you. I also thought about how people say that you don't pick your kid, that your kid picks you. As I sat there in the hot water, looking up at the stars, as the year turned new, I thought about the plunge I am taking, and who is going to pick me, and when.