BootsnAll Travel Network



Articles Tagged ‘Portland’

More articles about ‘Portland’
« Home

Needs Assembly

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

I made another trip to Ikea yesterday, and now I think I’ve finished buying stuff for my new apartment. It should all be here and fully assembled by the end of the day Thursday, and from that point I think I’ll be finished “settling in” and can get on with living in Portland, Oregon. I think this is the first time I’ve ever been so clear and intentional about assembling a new life around myself. Is that because I’ve been absorbed in child-rearing, the needs of various partners, and whatever my job was, for the past four or five decades? Probably. So how does one assemble–not just the furniture with screw-holes in the wrong places and instructions that seem to refer to pieces not included in the package–but a whole, vibrant life: without a job, without family, without pre-existing friendships or any form of anchor? How, as Alice Walker says, do we choose to “be free indeed”? [read on]

Starting the blog again–from Portland

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

I’ve just moved to Portland, Oregon and am starting a whole new life as a full-time writer. I retired from college teaching in December, and so far, everything about the move is good, right, and wonderful. I left Houston Feb. 4, stopped in Arizona to visit my elder son, Chris Virden, and his family, and arrived in Portland Feb. 10. I’m not sure how much I will write in the blog, but I am in motion in a different way than I have been in the past–and a few of my friends have asked me to open the blog again, so I’m doing it today and we’ll see how it goes. Stephen Brody, who came into my life via the blog when he picked up on a tag to Sintra, the town where he lives, was a frequent commenter to the blog. I’ve invited him to write as often as he wants to. He is (I think he will agree) a little more cynical than I am, and (in my opinion) his views–even when, maybe especially when I don’t agree with them–add a little spice to the blog. I am not interested in being one of the world’s most popular bloggers, nor in making multiple entries per day. I am fascinated by Eleanor Roosevelt’s columns. I thought she published them once a week, which seemed reasonable to me; but then I learned she published them SIX days a week, which I think is a bit much. I will begin with a 3-page piece I wrote a few days ago to describe my trip to Portland and my first impressions. Here that is. [read on]

Portland it is!

Monday, August 13th, 2007

I only had from 1 p.m. on Saturday till 10 a.m. today (Monday), but it was enough. I am in love with Portland, Oregon, and with the neighborhood where the dazzlingly interesting Shakti Khan lives. It’s called “nob hill,” it reminds me of the Notting Hill area of London, and it is everything anyone could want a neighborhood to be: old Victorian houses converted into coffee shops, art galleries, clothing resale shops, and bookstores. In a twelve-block radius I saw more restaurants than I could count (all with sidewalk seating), parks, a few warehouses, apartment buildings for all income levels, a hospital, two accupuncturists, shingles advertising massages and lessons in everything from guitar to Chinese conversation, plus two yoga centers. People walk there, and the life of the streets is entrancing. The strolling multitude is multi-colored, multi-formed, of all generations: plenty of kids with piercings and tattoos; families and multi-racial couples, gay and straight; leashed and well-behaved dogs (last year Portland was named the most dog-friendly city in America); roses, tall trees, tough-looking bikers, bicycle riders in spandex, a few drunks sitting on porch steps, and gray-haired bohemians in all manner of dress. How could I not want to live there? [read on]