update
verse for verse, an email I sent today to my beloved friends back east:Dusk comes softly to Portland. Lilacs lay heavily on crisp, clean sidewalks. Flowering blooms make gray concrete a thick pink shag carpet and I skip and kick, laughing at this crazy, flowering zoo. My hand trips over pink blossoms that make ugly old broken down fences beautiful. Smile and nod at the man with the dog, he is a different man and a different dog than I have seen over the last few days, but still, I bend to rub the pet’s adoring face.
And I climb the tall stairs for the tenth day in a row. Today, I barely feel the burn. Not until I reach the very top, more than 70 steps in the sky, where I laugh and wave at the passing tram overhead. I turn, and see the neighborhood spread out before me. I am here.
Greetings, dear friends. If we haven’t talked, don’t feel slighted. No, it’s not just because I am busy. But many trips (3 hours each way) to my parents’ place, unpacking and organizing and the rest of it, yes, have meant a busy three weeks.
Actually, the biggest reason I haven’t called has to do with the three-hour time change. By the time I feel like talking, it’s 10, 11 or 12 your time. So for now, an email.
But things are good here. I am dodging pedestrians who step off of sidewalks whenever the mood strikes them, knowing that they always have the right of way. I am also terrified of the day I cut off a streetcar, though I know it’s inevitable. I am, without a doubt, completely enamored of Portland. I feel like the changing season is changing within me, too, and I have shed my sweaters too early, since the nights are cool, even after a day that reached 70 degrees.
I am busy with writing and optimization work and more work is on the way. Oddly, new business opportunities continue to enter my life and at this point I just embrace them. The worst I can do is fail… No. The worst thing would be not taking a risk. Not trying something new.
And I have to laugh at all the pretentious pups carrying messenger bags in Portland. Am dumbfounded at the endless march of bicyclists on every street, alley and sidewalk. Still in a slight culture shock over the dearth of a really good G&T (or a really smooth Kentucky bourbon), OTB instead of racetracks and the total lack of sophistication in every prime rib and steak joint here. Vegans and almost-vegans, like my neighbor, rule the day, and they are rapidly becoming influential to my diet, too. Today I ate sushi off of a moving train. My niece, slightly awed, asked me in an undertone if I’d ever eaten at a moving sushi restaurant before. I laughed it off but felt slightly in awe myself, of something I’ve only seen in movies.
So far, so good.
Love,
Lisa
And I climb the tall stairs for the tenth day in a row. Today, I barely feel the burn. Not until I reach the very top, more than 70 steps in the sky, where I laugh and wave at the passing tram overhead. I turn, and see the neighborhood spread out before me. I am here.
Greetings, dear friends. If we haven’t talked, don’t feel slighted. No, it’s not just because I am busy. But many trips (3 hours each way) to my parents’ place, unpacking and organizing and the rest of it, yes, have meant a busy three weeks.
Actually, the biggest reason I haven’t called has to do with the three-hour time change. By the time I feel like talking, it’s 10, 11 or 12 your time. So for now, an email.
But things are good here. I am dodging pedestrians who step off of sidewalks whenever the mood strikes them, knowing that they always have the right of way. I am also terrified of the day I cut off a streetcar, though I know it’s inevitable. I am, without a doubt, completely enamored of Portland. I feel like the changing season is changing within me, too, and I have shed my sweaters too early, since the nights are cool, even after a day that reached 70 degrees.
I am busy with writing and optimization work and more work is on the way. Oddly, new business opportunities continue to enter my life and at this point I just embrace them. The worst I can do is fail… No. The worst thing would be not taking a risk. Not trying something new.
And I have to laugh at all the pretentious pups carrying messenger bags in Portland. Am dumbfounded at the endless march of bicyclists on every street, alley and sidewalk. Still in a slight culture shock over the dearth of a really good G&T (or a really smooth Kentucky bourbon), OTB instead of racetracks and the total lack of sophistication in every prime rib and steak joint here. Vegans and almost-vegans, like my neighbor, rule the day, and they are rapidly becoming influential to my diet, too. Today I ate sushi off of a moving train. My niece, slightly awed, asked me in an undertone if I’d ever eaten at a moving sushi restaurant before. I laughed it off but felt slightly in awe myself, of something I’ve only seen in movies.
So far, so good.
Love,
Lisa
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