Portland – Page 5

Goodbye House, I Love You

I’ve saved my last goodbye for the house that has been our home for sixteen years. Built in 1925, old homes have their charms and their challenges. This one has charmed me and it’s hard to say goodbye but it is time. The movers are packing our belongings and loading it onto the truck. Tomorrow we leave for Arizona.

It’s funny what you fall in love with, sometimes it’s the little things. I’ll always remember the wooden grate over the heating vent that attracted the cats like a watering hole in a dry savannah. Trixie loves it, as have many of our cats, including Boo who was already occupying it and wondering about his sister’s intentions as he gave her the side-eye on her approach.

The mover’s were surprised we aren’t taking the stained glass windows with us, which hang just inside of the real windows. They were here when we bought the house, home-made I would guess, but do a lovely job of providing privacy while letting in light.

These old houses have their challenges too. I won’t miss the tiny one car garage. You get used to contractors coming out to fix what seems like a simple problem and hearing them say “I’ve never seen this before”. We had an electrician out recently who based on my description of the problem thought it would be an easy fix, as it had been a long day and he was ready for home. Two hours later …

When I think of home I think of this house. I’ve never lived anywhere nearly as long as we’ve lived here. It will still be a home, just not ours. I hope it protects and delights its new owners as well it has us. Goodbye, I love you.

Goodbye Portland, I Love You

Leaving Portland means leaving a way of life. In our old neighborhood of Irvington I can walk to shops and restaurants. For most of our years here I’ve slung my Tom Bihn laptop bag over my shoulder and walked to the light rail station to take the train to work. I only drive about 1000 to 3000 miles a year, depending on how many long hiking trips I take, so I’ll drive as many miles on our way to Arizona as I might do in a year. It was obvious on my interview trip that life in Arizona will be centered around the car, so I’m going to have to get used to driving to work again. One of the things I’ll figure out during the year we’re renting is how long of a commute I can tolerate, which will dictate what neighborhoods we will consider when it is time to buy.

There is more about Portland I’ve loved, from its progressive ideals (if not always progressive policies) to its eccentricities, such as the day I met someone walking a pig at the dog park. Not a little pot-belled pig, a full-grown pig. People practicing Shakespeare in the park, even our little Irving park. The old neighborhoods. The light rail. The downtown. The city parks. The duck ponds with not just mallards and Canada geese but wood ducks, bufflehead, wigeon, scaup. On and on.

The ever-worsening traffic I won’t miss but we are heading to a much larger city so perhaps we will trade one type of traffic for another. Neither will I miss the ice storms, we’ll see if the misery of desert summers are a fair trade for wonder of desert winters.

It was the lure of Portland that led me to interview with the company where I worked for two decades, the loss of that job is forcing me to leave. I will always treasure our time in Portland, it’s been a wonderful place to call home. Goodbye, I love you.

Floating Home

Floating homes on the Willamette River, which runs south-to-north through Portland before emptying into the Columbia River.

Goodbye Irvington, I Love You

Sixteen years ago it was time to move.

My wife had changed jobs and we needed to find a home with a reasonable commute both to her job in Portland and to mine in Beaverton to the west. We found a wonderful realtor who knew the old neighborhoods and patiently showed us our options as we tried to get a grasp on life in the city. When our home in Salem sold, there was one house that stood in a neighborhood called Irvington, a name which meant nothing to me then yet so much to me now.

I had never lived in a city before so I was nervous about our new life but I need not have been. At first I loved being able to walk to Portland’s light rail system, MAX, as there was a stop near work and I no longer had to deal with the stress of driving every day. But I also fell in love with the old trees, the unique old houses, the old garages, the variety of people, the variety of landscaping, the ability to walk to shops and restaurants.

I fell in love so deeply it became hard to imagine living in the suburbs again.

Then nine years ago we got a dog. The neighborhood I thought I knew opened up to me in new ways. There was the dog park at Irving Park, and Irving Park in general, as back then the pup was up for wandering around the park as a whole. What a beautiful little gem just a few blocks from our house. But it was the walks after we left Irving Park, where I let Ellie wander wherever she wanted through the neighborhood, where I began walking down streets I had never walked down before and fell in love with the art with which people had decorated their homes and yards. There was an artist a block south of here that created a little dragon out of tile and concrete in front of his house, that I had seen on my way to the train, but it was only after Ellie started taking me farther afield that I saw the much larger dragon he had created at Irvington School.

I started taking a camera with me on all our long morning walks and began documenting some of my favorite pieces of art near the sidewalk, the urban wildlife, the urban flora, the paintings, the murals, the poetry, the fleeting chalk drawings, the Jedi, the bird van, the tree art, the stepping stones, the totems, the wishing tree, the desire for peace. And of course the dragons. This is not a community of artists, though there are artists here, it’s a community of families who feel free to express themselves.

Like the damaged eye of the dragon at the school, time takes its toll on all things, neighborhoods included. It was getting pricey when we bought in but it’s much more expensive now. A while back it was designated a historic neighborhood to try to keep the old homes from being demolished and replaced with large modern homes, but that can also keep out the higher density housing that provides more affordable options. Irvington has been wonderful to us, but it has excluded people in its past, and I want it to be as good a home to as many as possible as it has been to us, for it to embrace the strength of diversity.

Thank you Irvington for changing my misconceptions about urban neighborhoods, for giving me a safe place not just to live but to explore. Goodbye, I love you.

Goodbye Irving Park, I Love You

As our move to Arizona draws close, let me say goodbye to some of the things I’ve loved about our time in the Pacific Northwest, starting with Irving Park. When we moved to Portland 16 years ago, we only had cats so we never considered how close the house might be to a dog park. When we adopted Ellie in 2009 and trained her to go off-leash, it was a delight to discover a dog park was only a few blocks away. After not stepping foot in the park until then we’ve visited twice a day, every day, since. In the sun, in the fog, in the rain, in the snow. Not the ice, Ellie hates the ice.

These days Ellie keeps her evening walks short so we go up to Irving Park but not all the way to the dog park, but most mornings she wants to make it up the hill. More to meet the owners than the other dogs, both because she adores people and because she never misses an opportunity to try to convince someone to give her a treat. After that we head out into the neighborhood, occasionally she wants to go straight home but usually she’s up for a longer ramble, even at 14 years old.

The trees started blooming a couple of weeks ago so I took advantage of a sunny morning to get one last picture of Ellie at the park. A variety of trees ring the paths of the park, some giants from long ago whose lives were spared when the area was carved from the forest. A handful of years ago I deliberately traded a lot of my hiking on the weekends for long walks with Ellie when I realized our aging pup would still go on long walks if they were in the morning, and while I miss the hiking I wouldn’t trade my time with Ellie for it.

Thank you Irving Park for many great memories with this greatest of pups. Thank you to all who helped create and maintain the park over so many years. Goodbye, I love you.

📷: Sony A6500 | Sony-Zeiss 24mm f/1.8
🗓️: March 11, 2018

Wherever Your Path Leads, May You Find Peace

The Pup is Up

Ellie wasn’t feeling well, whether from injury or illness we still don’t know, when the snow fell right before my trip to Arizona. She did go out for a short walk that morning and got to experience the snow, even if she wasn’t up for her normal morning walk, and at one point did surprise me by rolling around for a moment in the snow. For a while there she appeared to be in some discomfort and was having trouble with stairs, and on top of that her appetite was off. She’s been on the mend since, yesterday she was up for a long walk and this morning even wanted to go for an hour and a half, which is about as long as she’s ever wanted (although we don’t go as far as we used to as age has slowed her down). Her appetite is back as well, we’ll see if it holds.

Between her kidneys and her heart and other age-related ailments, the vet was pleasantly surprised she’s been as stable as she’s been, so we’re keeping on her current medicine levels. The past few weeks show how fragile that healthy balance is on a dog this old, and I hate that soon we’re going to make her go on a three day car ride to her new home, but there are no better alternatives. Her health isn’t good enough for flying, and besides we know from long experience that she just wants to be with us, even to her own discomfort. I think she’ll do OK now that she’s walking better, our little Subarus aren’t the easiest for her to get in and out of but she should be better on the ramp now. It’s the cats that worry me the most on the car ride but hopefully in a month they (and we) will be adjusting to their new home.

A Year with the Sony A6500

It was a year ago today that I ordered the Sony A6500 and a handful of lenses and, while it was a difficult decision at the time, I’m so glad I did. It’s the camera I’ve used for nearly everything since then apart from some wildlife shots, but I’ve used it for wildlife too. I wanted a small system that would be easy to take along but also provide good quality for when I’m hiking, and it has gone with me on all of the morning walks with the dog since then as well as all of my hikes. I took this picture shortly before heading out the door to catch my flight to Arizona. I had the camera packed for the trip but took it out at the last minute, so that I wouldn’t be tempted to do too much hiking when I should be driving around getting a feel for the city and its neighborhoods.

We’ll have a lot of fun together in Arizona, the A6500 and I, just as we did in Portland.

Portland, You Have to Let Me Go

This is what Portland looked like as the sun started to rise on the morning I was leaving for my interview in Arizona. It snowed the night before and iced up a little overnight but the trains were still running on time and I was able to walk down and take the train to the airport as planned. I loved seeing the snow one last time but all I wanted was an easy departure as I set out on the trip that would determine how we spend the next phase of our lives. I was sad I didn’t have time to go out and photograph the neighborhood in the snow, but I had a plane to catch, and at least I had my pictures from the heavier snow a year prior. This is resident philosopher Boo enjoying his last snow from one of our two picture windows at the front of the house, his future storms will not be so tranquil as they will be the occasional but ferocious summer thunderstorms of Arizona’s monsoon season.

Misconceptions

I lived in small towns and cities growing up so the only urban neighborhoods I saw were the ones I saw on TV, which tended to be a sea of concrete and asphalt. So I was surprised when we started looking at houses in Portland years ago and found established neighborhoods full of unique old houses and old trees. This is our neighborhood of Irvington, covered in a light dusting of snow on Christmas Eve. I’m going to miss how walkable this neighborhood is, I’m going to miss these old houses, and I’m certainly going to miss these old trees. People talk about the heat in Arizona but the thing that struck me when I visited on a cooler day was both the dry air and the lack of shade due to the lack of trees.

It’s not just that it will be hot in the summer, but that you can’t escape the sun. I have an old bottle of sunscreen, I can’t even tell you how old it is, because I only use it when I’m up above the tree line or when I travel. Normally I hike in long sleeves, long pants, and a brimmed hat, and since I’m usually hiking in the forest I don’t have to worry about the sun. That’s about to change, but lest I sound too negative, I am genuinely excited about exploring the desert and photographing the completely different landscapes, plants, and animals.

My hunch and my hope is that I will love both places, my old home and my new home, and that I’ll appreciate each for what they are.