Victory in the Pacific Northwest

Last night, my last night in Portland for a while, I sortied from the Value Inn after dark and walked down the hill, looking to grab a bite to eat. The air was thick with moisture and warmth. I was quite comfortable in a simple down jacket and a baseball cap, skipping along from block to block all the way down to Burnside and back.

Portland has many great restaurants, but that quarter of downtown is rather deserted on a Sunday evening. Even the food trucks along Fourth Street were closed.

I wound up grabbing a sandwich at the deli in the first floor of the apartment building across the street from the hotel. CYAN---a handsome gold LEED-certified building that towers above Fourth Street in postmodern splendor. Ironically it was where Red had her first apartment in town.

Along the walk I indulged in an admiration of the lights on the tall Christmas tree in Pioneer Courthouse Square. It was almost six months since I'd arrived in town and stayed that first night at the Heathman. The next day I'd walked down to the same square and admired the floral layout that had been placed there in honor of the Rose Festival, making a giant heart. Going back to see the lights on teh tree felt like the perfect bookend. Summer becomes winter. Day goes into night. Roses become colored lights.

Six months have flown by, as six months always do, as one gets older. Yet I feel in a completely different place in life than I did when I arrived here last summer.

I had come here this time with an agenda of rebooting my Oregon experience, and getting back to place in my life where I was forward looking, instead of full of regret about the past. Being here, I wanted to experience joy again instead of pain.

A couple years ago, the last time I had visited Portland, I was in a very contracted place in life. I felt as if my soul were punctured and leaking from multiple places. I had a plan to turn things around, and regain the Holy Grail, as it were, that seemed so remote in the past, a relic of happy times squandered.

In June, I had told myself that I would not hold myself to anything here, that I would leave town after a couple days if I felt like it. But I had wanted to find a reason to stay, and I did.

My impression at this point is that my plan succeeded beyond my wildest hopes. It took a great force of will, and catapulted me into a new deepening of faith, but it worked. Where once joy was elusive, it now seems to flow through me like an electric current. I seek challenges and struggle on a whole new level. Even as my eyes are widened every day to the suffering in the world, I feel a great inner peace.

I feel big as a mountain, as a character in an old movie once said. Quite a propos here, I think----one last private inside joke before letting go of that old self forever.

See you in 2014, PDX! Joy and Peace, and you know I mean it!