South Dak-Oregon

There is strange trend I’ve noticed since August of 2003: South Dakotans moving to Portland en masse. It wasn’t long ago on this very blog that I was welcoming a long-time friend to Portland, Billy. And now, not even four months later, I am welcoming two more old friends to this great city, Kari and James. Both are moving to Portland for reasons that many South Dakota expatiates share: to attend school, to pursue a fresh change in lifestyle, and to live among friends in a most “livable” city. While Portland is seething with twenty-something free spirits from all over, there is something uncanny about the high percentage of South Dakota’s youth moving specifically to Portland. South Dakota is a small state with a total population of roughly 650,000 people. If “people from South Dakota” was a somewhat normally distributed statistic, one would expect that I may run into one or two people in Portland that call South Dakota home. But by the end of this week, I will know twenty South Dakotans – by name – that live in the Portland area. That is not including the people I know in other parts of Oregon, or friends-of-friends that happen to be from South Dakota. So, assuming I know 200 people in South Dakota by name, that means 1/10 of those people now live in Portland. That is remarkable. The statistics are even more absurd considering that there are likely people here that I don’t know or know of that live in Portland. And then there are the people that have moved to other cities – Minneapolis, Minnesota, Austin, Texas, Denver, Colorado… There is clearly an exodus of people in their twenties moving out of South Dakota. There could be many reasons for this, reasons that I won’t contemplate here. But if I were a state politician, I would curious, if not concerned; I certainly haven’t met anyone that is moving to South Dakota.

Aside from making local pub visits seem like a high school reunion, it is a privilege to have so many old friends in a new city. I acknowledge the rare opportunity I have to continue friendships and experiences with people that have already contributed to my friendships and experiences; excuse the cliché, but it really is a new chapter in an old book. Furthermore, friendships can expand as people connect via a disparate network of scientists, musicians, baristas, lawyers, and significant others. If my personal network was mapped, the nexus would currently be in Portland, Oregon. Granted, there is some bias due to the type of company I’ve been fortunate enough to keep. As mentioned, my friends are a disparate group, but we share a penchant for travel, liberalism, music, and the outdoors, all of which make Portland an obvious stomping ground. Regardless, the world is a shrinking place, both metaphorically and literally – we are connected by our technology, by our shrinking global resources, and by our exploding population. Solutions to these problems require a special network of people with myriad ideas, expertise, and skill. While “saving the world” may not be a conscious agenda among our small network, we are a people that inject respect for one another and for the potential of the human “experience” (Ahhh, here I go again; I could write about my macchiato and somehow steam a cosmic muse into the foam!). For these reasons I'm confident that Portland will welcome you as it welcomed me: with open arms, challenges, and a nebulous slice of destiny. Welcome to your new home, Kari and James!

To Half Or Not To Half? That Is Not The Question.

I spent the larger part of Sunday, June 4th, 2006 remembering Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 – my 26th birthday. One would think that after 26 years of experience, a birthday would become monotonous. To some degree this is impossible in American culture due to seemingly continuous rights-of-passage, e.g. 18 = voting, military draft registration (if you call that a “right”), and smoking; 21 = alcohol; 25 = decreased insurance rates and the “right” to rent a vehicle. American culture or not, there surely must be an age at which the birthday hourglass becomes half-empty and begins counting down to “death day”. Pardon the macabre muse, but Sunday, June 4th was the first time I wondered if my birthday hourglass had indeed started counting down instead of up

This, or course, is not likely true as I’m far from the median life expectancy age. Yet, as long as I am 100% convinced that I’m alive, I am 100% convinced that I will die. And I’m afraid of death. Saturday, June 3rd, 2006, however, was about life. I woke up on this day with no agenda until 7:00 PM, mulling about the sunlit cafes and ateliers of Portland. I refused to read a scientific paper, talk about a scientific paper, or even read the news. I let the world spin on its own, and the world let me spin on my own – just for a day. “Is this life,” I wondered? Am I so busy trying to “live” every day just to avoid dealing with the fact that I’m slowly dying? But that is a question about death, and June 3rd, 2006 was a day about life.

At 7:00 PM I was among friends. I was regaling in drink and conversation at a local favorite of mine, the Rogue Brewery. Here, there were conversations about life; conversations about what people were doing with their time, like getting engaged, shopping for new cars, studying for exams, and moving to new cities. There was an appreciated simplicity, even relief, that these are the things people do. And they do them everyday. Travels to Spain or travels across Portland, somehow it all seemed so novel. At 7:00 PM, June 3rd, 2006, I was celebrating life.

At 8:00 PM, we walked to Bridgeport Brewery to continue and expand the celebration. 26 years of age or 6 years of age, certain elements of a birthday party remain the same. There is food, drink, conversation, songs, candles, laughing… Birthdays have energy, a very positive energy. But this has been the case since I turned 6 years-old. How could this not be mundane? Could it be that I sensed everyone around me to be truly alive? If so, this is something that could never be mundane.

At “Don’t Ask Me” O’Clock, we moved to the last location for the night, “Slabtown”. If NW Portland could have a dive bar, Slabtown is it – an apt place for a night to land. Here there were only unfeigned, jovial smiles. My drinks slowly diluted to pure water (life’s true medium!), and the night eventually walked me home with a gentle hand. I, along with a handful of great people, had celebrated my 26th birthday.

***

A few daggers of crimson light escaped the Coastal Range cloud barrier to frost just the upper limits of trees. June 4th, 2006 was about to be an ephemeral memory. Poised against an apt, if not metaphorical, half-lit moon, I was wondering if my 26-year-old hourglass was half-empty. It was a feeling as though I had died, likely because I felt so alive just the day before. But if I had died, was I in Heaven or Hell? Speeding through uncharted canals of NW Skyline Drive, my mind was floating where both ecstacy and melancholy exist as one. This is a strange Universe were a 7-10 split is a strike and where every trench has a view. And that’s precisely the place where both life and death also exist as one: to live 100% is to die 100%. I then realized that I am frightened of death because my 26 heavily-textured years are so valuable to me. It is as though I’ve borrowed so much from the life bank that I’m going to owe big when death collects. But if there was no such thing as death, why, then, celebrate life on June 3rd, 2006? All I would ever know is life. Is that even a “life” at all? With the sun now buried deep in the Pacific Ocean, I accepted that death is the currency of life; without death, life is a worthless piece of painted paper. Shopping for cars, taking exams, getting engaged, getting un-engaged, laughing and crying…these, paradoxically, cannot be the wealth of life without death. On June 3rd, 2006, I was among a wealth of good friends and great memories. There was life. Because there was death. This Ying and Yang is something that wills me to live through June 5th, 2006, June 6th,2006, my 27th birthday, and my 72nd birthday, all the while still being allowed to fear death; it is a Universe where my hourglass can be both half-empty and half-full. For this, I thank all my friends and family for filling both of those halves to make the whole that is me. You give me life.