Breaking Up With Portland...Again.

Anyone who has met me for longer than five minutes knows that I do not like Portland. But it's not Portland's fault. It is mine. I cannot seem to be able to enjoy living in a city that is a literal garbage can, run by garbage people.

A personal failing, but one that I own.

Portland's saving grace has always been that once winter hits and the small cache of vitamin D we have hoarded so preciously over the five sunny days of summer starts to drain from our body turning into what I have termed The Dark Abyss of Despair From Which I Will Probably Never Return, at least there are bars to go to so you can drink until it is springtime and the crocuses show their little purple faces in the sun and you can remember that there are things worth living for. It is the natural order of things, like bears hibernating, if the bears were hibernating together in close quarters and also drunk.

Every year I look forward to the winter drinking season, which is different from the summer drinking season, because I am wearing a sweater now. 

BUT NOT THIS YEAR.

I would like to say if anyone hasn't noticed, we are in a global pandemic, but it does seem quite likely that Florida and Idaho and South Dakota et. al. have really not. 

Our lease expired in December. Our main hobby of taking in the rich culture of the bar scene and exploring new gastronomical heights (i.e. getting drunk and eating food) is gone. Life is bad.

It is at times like these I look to my ancestors for answers. Now that I am married to Dan, I look to his ancestors too. And our ancestors both agree, when the going gets tough, leave all your belongings behind and go find a new place to live.

Unlike our ancestors, we are doing it by choice. Social progress!

Experienced and excellent explorers that we are, we know the value of an early start, and I capture the final sunrise in Portland before we set out.

So majestic.

I breathe in the air, which smells like air and not like street people camps on fire for once. I tell Dan I am ready to go.

He points to our entirely trashed apartment that is still not clean, our bags that are not loaded in the car, and the 23498 things that we have yet to do before we are ready to actually leave.

Two hours later, we are ready to depart. 

"BUT I LIKE LIVING IN GARBAGE."

I tell Likely to say her goodbyes to her natural habitat and she gives me a baleful glare. I ignore her feelings as per usual. We pile up in the car, and hit the road. 

Homeless, happy, slightly unhinged, laden with hand sanitizer, masks, and a healthy disdain for people, we head straight into the heart of COVID country.