Sunday afternoon found me relocating from the pleasant, hip, organicness of residential east Portland down to a hotel by I-5 in the suburb of Lake Oswego. The work week was going to demand some full attention for a couple days, and I figured it would be the best way to plow through some of the tasks ahead of me.
My route down to Lake Oswego took me south along the length of I-205, the loop on the east side of Portland. It so happens that this route is exactly the one I took when I first came to Oregon, in September 1985, riding in an airport shuttle from PDX down to Salem as a new transfer student. Driving along that same route, looking out of the rolling hills with their ragged edges, the sawtooth outline of fir trees so distinct to this area, brought back primeval memories of that earlier version of me, prompting me to ask musing questions about my life.
Of the questions that went through my mind, some were unanswerable, but one question, "Where did it all bring me to?" was easy to address. In some ways it felt as if my entire life history since that initial ride along I-205 had been some kind of ultra-intricate Rube Goldberg machine of cause and effect, with a line of snaking dominos falling to set off some trap door and a bouncing ball across trampolines to make an arrow shoot into a target, etc. But really the answer to the question of "where did it bring me to?" was simple: right here, and right now.
I'd booked a room for three nights at the Phoenix Inn and Suites in Lake Oswego. I didn't want to be going anywhere for a couple days, except maybe to the nearby Bridgeport Village center. Phoenix Inn is a Northwest hotel chain that was new to me. The check-in time was listed at 4pm, and usually I like to follow all the rules exactly, just so things are less of a hassle. When I pulled off the exit onto the frontage road, I was about an hour early to check in, so I decided just to hang out in a mellow Sunday fashion until the official time.
Driving past the hotel, I passed a few chain restaurants---a Chevy's Mexican restaurant and an Olive Garden, and then a Trader Joe's (a place I often seek out for my supplies). It seemed like the perfect landing spot for a few days of work.
I followed the street, Bangy Road, a few blocks south along the Interstate until it started climbing a small hill into a residential neighborhood. At the corner of Bangy and Burma Road, I came upon a small vacant lot with a stub of a driveway and some sewer fixtures sticking out of the ground. The grass and weeds were overgrown in a manner suggesting someone had started to build a house there and had abandoned the effort.
I pulled the Bimmer into the driveway stub and parked it, perched on the hill overlooking Bangy and the Interstate beyond. I got out of my car and just leaned against it in peace, smelling the residue of the oil on the engine and watching the cars roar by on I-5.
The airy life questions in my head continued to dance around in harmless thought-play. I didn't really care about coming up with any answers. I knew it wouldn't matter anyway.
Then I pulled out my phone and checked the time. Still a half hour to go.
At that moment, a bizarre and random thought popped into my head out of nowhere: This seems like a perfect place to call someone and say "Meet me at the corner of Bangy and Burma."
What happened in the following seconds really threw me for a loop. Within literally less than a minute of that random thought, an aging Buick came down Bangy Road from the same direction I had come. It turned on Burma as I had done and made its way up the hillock on which I was perched. Then it pulled over on the side of Burma right across the street from where I was parked and standing.
There was no one else in sight, and no house where the car was, so I wondered what was going on. I saw that the driver was a middle aged man with unkempt grey hair. He was talking on his cell phone, completely absorbed in the conversation he was having, and seemingly oblivious to my presence.
Then a couple minutes later, another car, a late model red Volkswagen came along the same route on the street and pulled to a stop along the curb about ten feet behind the Buick. The driver was a young woman. She too was having a conversation, holding an I-Phone in front of her with her fingers extended to avoid breaking her fingernails. She too was seemingly oblivious to my presence, only a few feet away. Her conversation was very animated. It appeared she was angry and was screaming into the phone at times, although I couldn't hear a single word through the car door.
A popular spot, I said to myself, cradling my own phone in my hand.
I did my best to avoid watching both them, but I couldn't help sneaking sideways glances at them. About five minutes after the woman arrived, she opened the car door, and with great theater as expressing anger she grabbed some items out of her little Volkswagen, shut the door firmly, and then stomped up to the Buick. She opened the passenger door and climbed inside, shutting it with a loud noise.
A few minutes later, the Buick drove away into the residential neighborhood on Burma Road, leaving the Volkswagen with its engine running and its turning lights blinking.
I couldn't help but be stunned a bit, and not just just because of the weird synchronicity of my thought "coming to life" in front of me. It was yet another incident of the kind of thing that happens to me repeatedly around here, but which seems to happen rarely elsewhere. I seem to keep being privy to people's private conversations and incidents. A couple years ago, for example, I went back to a small town very near here, where I spent some time years ago, to revisit a park where I had once seen a musical theater production. The park had been completely redesigned since my visit (not for better, unfortunately---they pretty much ruined the place). While I stood contemplating the changes, I was forced to eavesdrop on a very heartbreaking conversation nearby in the parking lot between a mother ostensibly dropping off her daughter in some custody arrangement. The mother was sobbing while apologizing to her child that she would not be able to hold her and put her to bed at night. "Mommy still loves you," she kept saying. At the time, there was no way for me to escape while giving away that I had been overhearing them. I had to stick it out until they were done.
With the VW sitting along Burma Road idling without a driver, I decided that it might be a good time to make my exit from the vacant lot, and be gone by the time the Buick got back. I got back in my car and drove away, heading back down Bangy towards the Phoenix Inn, checking in a few minutes before 4 pm.
I thought that would be the last of it, but later, walking down Bangy while looking for a place to eat, I saw the Buick drive past me. I recognized the license plate. I couldn't tell if the young woman was still inside. I didn't look very closely.
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