Field Report

It started like a theoretical proposition, a ridiculous idea. Amber, move to Portland? Yeah, right. Amber wouldn’t leave Olympia.
Here I am, sitting on my couch on Salmon street, and it’s where I live. In Portland. I’m still not quite sure how I made it.
#1: The Macaroni and Cheese:
The thing that held me in Olympia is family. My family with the surfer blond baby, my family with the Sunday dinners, my family of teachers. Those families give me strength, allow me rest, permit me power. It breaks my heart to leave them, so I just have to stir up confidence that they’ll be fine without me there. I have to focus on what’s in front of me, the boxes to pack and the future. On Sunday, what was in front of me was the macaroni and cheese, cooking on the stove to bring to Sunday dinner. No avoiding it. My way of showing my love every week, a full pot of food to bring to the family. And the feeling of leaving boiled up along with the noodles. What am I doing leaving these children that grow and change with each passing week?
#2: The Couch:
I just kept going, piling box upon box into my car, driving back and forth between Olympia and Portland like some kind of shuttle service. Stuff down, friends back. Over and over, all week long. Making some kind of connecting path between the places, a spider weaving a web to shorten the distance. I didn’t stop really until I arrived finally on the couch, the last box having been precariously stacked against the wall. The second I attempted to vocalize the process, how it never could have happened without everyone’s help, I burst into tears. The next day, I fell asleep on the couch, and when I woke up to the sound of Portland friends singing my name, my arms had quit working. They hung at my sides, paralyzed in forfeit. I woke up and joined them.
#3: Farewell, Beloved Olympia:
My adoration and profound love for you is enormous. It is a list without end of people and places and times. My love marches down the street with a chocolate cake on its head, it sails on the Nicely Nicely in the afternoon sun, it sits in the balcony at the Capitol Theater, and it stands in the aisles at the co-op having an endless conversation. It stays there with you, and it follows that sticky silk trail back and forth between you and Portland, endlessly.

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