Berlin Byways

The choice of name for this blog was remarkably prescient, since as you probably know, I have relocated from the Portland in Oregon to its older and smaller sibling city on the coast of Maine.  This is a long-ish story but the short and publishable version is that I and my dear partner in crime J have decided to weather the vagaries of older adulthood together, a kind of “Golden Girls Redux.”  To this end, Squeaky and I packed up our Portland (OR) digs in June, sent our pared-down possessions across the country and into storage, and flew to Maine and thence a summer on J’s fabled island, about which you have a read a bit in the prior post.

Portland, Maine, is revealing itself to be an utterly delightful city. Small in size and population (around 67,000 souls), it prides itself on being and having been Maine’s premier urban center for nearly 400 years.  The architecture is stunning, due in part to several devastating fires, the streets eminently walkable, the neighborhoods charming, the restaurant scene remarkably robust for its size, the arts scene bustling, and the people warm and welcoming.  It is in many ways a “Mini Me” of the Oregon incarnation, and I feel remarkably fortunate to have the chance to be here.

My cover photograph is a sliver of one of my favorite intersections in the Old Port section of town, but for a fuller look, here’s the entire photo:

The residential sections of town are equally compelling.  Here’s an unretouched shot of one of the city’s many “double houses”:

And you thought the “ivy league” was just an expression.

When it came to house-hunting, J and I came from very different perspectives.  She had been living in a secluded suburban settlement and I had been perched in the middle of the urban jungle, such as that was in TOP (The Other Portland).  J, in her generosity, decided to try living downtown, “in Paris,” as she thinks of it, and so we found a wonderful condo that looks something like the above.  It was built in 1894 by one of the city’s premier architects, John Calvin Stevens, for a former mayor and contains many of the amenities of the era – high ceilings, three fireplaces, a curved bannister, bay windows, and stained glass.  Happily for us, a local developer also recently added the “mod cons.”

So, easy-schmeasy, you say? Piece of cake?  Ah, but now we hit a few bumps, and that is Moving In Together, and the story underlying the title of this post.  J and I, while having weathered all manner of life events together (careers, moves, marriages, travels, death of dear ones, aging, you name it) have never tried to settle down, to build a home together.  In the past, we have camped either at My Place or Her Place, always with the due respect and flexibility that required.  But now the gloves are off.  How do we create a habitation that allows us both to feel “at home”? I will have to blushingly admit that when I have tried to do this in the past, usually with male cohabitants, my experience is that men will, pretty much, leave all this bit to the fairer sex (with the exception of where the TV should go).  But with two women, both of us alpha females with strong points of view but who love each other dearly, the challenges quickly emerged.

I hope it is not TMI to share that both J and I lost parents to death or desertion at an early age.  And as we have chewed and reflected on those losses, we have learned that it has affected us in two very different ways.  J’s response was to hold onto what she had, for dear life, in the event that she might need it sooner or later, since what she really needed, her mother, was taken from her far too soon.  My response was to pare down, to travel light, to be able to pack and vanish into the night if needed, since the loss of my father meant that I could never sleep without one eye open, ready to respond in an instant to the shifting environment. Those of you who have known me for any length of time will know I move a lot, even when I don’t intend to.  (Since June of 2011, for example, I have dwelt in eight different places, not counting hotels.)

So our response is to go slowly, to allow for the bumps, the pinches, the small set-tos.  J allowed me to open the kitchen boxes one at a time, agreed to pitch or store or relocate some of the items she brought from her previous abode (our kitchen is SMALL).  I have agreed to let the move-in process take much longer and go much slower than I would have liked in the past (72 hours is my traditional unpacking window).  We are currently negotiating a process (!!) by which we will decide which pictures are worthy to be hung, before even deciding where the heck to put them.  And we both rejoice in visits by friends and family who make inspired suggestions about furniture placement or who gift us with select pieces that tie a room together.

And so it goes. We practice the arts of negotiation, of compromise, of patience and inspiration on a daily basis.  I asked J the other day how our friendship was different or had changed since I had come to live with her this past summer.  She said something to the effect that nothing was really different than it had been before, but that she understood things about me in greater depth, and I would say exactly the same for her.  We are seeing each other’s icebergs in a new way.  And by building a home, we are creating a space for those icebergs to dock gently beside one another, to find a place of acceptance and support. It is a worthy task.  Now where are those damn light bulbs?

I am summering on an island in coastal Maine.  The fact that I can even use those words is nothing short of a miracle.  I have been working part- or full-time nearly continuously since the age of 16, and usually when I wasn’t working, well, I was looking for work and probably seriously underfunded.  A summer of leisure, in a beautiful place, with few responsibilities, is truly a joy and a treasure and is due nearly entirely to the generosity and support of my dear friend J, of whom I have spoken in the past.  She and her lovely canine familiar Amber have opened their home to me this summer, and for the most part (painters and mosquitoes aside), it has been glorious.

The fate of summering, certainly, is not in my hands alone. I am using the term here to refer to spending a long time over the warm months of June, July, and August *with no specific responsibilities besides those of basic living.*  It has held, in my lexicon, either a sense of upper class privilege or in the tradition of the British Raj, an excuse for escaping from the heat and disease of the city during the most torrid months. Troy Patterson, writing in Slate on June 25, 2014, muses:

“How much time must you spend somewhere before you can correctly call it summering? One plausible answer to this question is at least six weeks…Another plausible answer is two generations. (But I’d like to think that people born to the manor are those most keenly aware that this usage is terribly antique and may paint the speaker as some stereotypical Muffy or central-casting Chip.) Overall, it would be wisest to use summer as a verb only in limited contexts, such as when describing the migratory patterns of humpback whales.”

Humpback whales notwithstanding, J and members of her extended family have been summering (meaning spending *the whole summer*) here on the island for four generations.  This is practically unfathomable to me.  Four generations ago, my family was sailing ships in Denmark or picking potatoes in Germany or tailoring suits in Bohemia. And not only was her family here, others were as well, and the names of the houses (excuse me, “cottages”) reflect those generations back. Folks named “Smith” have lived for years in one lovely dwelling, but it’s still called “The Green House,” for example.  This kind of established tradition is perhaps more generally the purview of the East Coast than the West, where I was raised, but I still believe that it is nothing short of remarkable all the same.

And the current inhabitants are well aware of this, and seem to appreciate it keenly.  As I have written before in this blog, there is a “Brigadoon” quality to this place, both physically and emotionally.  “I’ve been coming for 24 years,” one renter said to me this afternoon, rocking gently on the porch of the Lodge. “I just love Maine.”  But coming for 24 years means coming in July, to the fully riotous glory of leafed trees, filled window boxes, the weekly punctuation of the Market Boat and the yacht club cocktail parties and the regular garbage pickup. One of course does not even show one’s face in what must be the icy dark days of January when the water is turned off and the charming weathered cottages can proffer no more heat than a fireplace or wood stove might allow.

Which brings us to the issue of Fate. J and I have been musing that the island feels fairly quiet this summer, that even the grocery stores in nearby villages seem a tad empty given that this is the high season in this neck of the woods. The question has arisen – whither the summerers? It doesn’t take an advanced degree in a social science to suggest some of the more practical reasons – two-income families don’t allow for that degree of temporal latitude; children’s school and camp activities create smaller windows for vacations; the cost of a second home possibly hundreds of miles from the first requires all manner of tending which puts pressure on strained budgets; even just the inevitable passing of the generations results in shorter and shorter time allocated to any given subset of a family.  These are all reasonable and plausible possibilities for a quieter summer.  Those who have been here for some time, though, speak nostalgically of seasons when bands of children whooping like wild Indians ran through the woods and along the beaches at all hours and large family dinners were served by live-in help and two services were held in the little chapel on Sunday rather than just one.

As is so often in the case in my life, I feel like the visiting field anthropologist, observing and describing. I stroll around a lovely, lovely island covered with second or third growth forest trying to return to its primeval ways.  I am invited into charming cottages filled with the remnants of bygone days, inviting one merely by sight or smell to settle in to a cozy chintz chair and rest one’s eyes on the view of a foggy shore on the far side of the water.  I chat with tanned and personable cottage dwellers (probably corporate titans in their real lives) who offer up a cheery hello or comment on the (ever-changing) weather.  But for me there is a “fin de siecle” sense to this summer experience for me, a sense that I am seeing the declining days of empire, or perhaps merely the last days of the island in this incarnation before it becomes a nature conservancy, perhaps, or turns into a “Sandal’s Couples-Only” honeymoon destination managed by Kimpton Hotels.

Fortunately, I don’t think J or I will have to see this next step.  For us, for this summer, the magic just continues to unroll one sunny (or cloudy or rainy) day at a time.  We sit, J and I and Amber, on the porch in the rockers, sipping our coffee or our G&Ts, speculating on whatever catches our attention, pointing out the ospreys or the passing boats.  I am fortunate indeed to see and experience this window of privilege, to share with J and the other denizens a little taste of a summer tradition that may be difficult to sustain.

I spent more than I had budgeted at the Farmer’s Market yesterday morning, but then again, I usually do and I can’t imagine a better cause.  One of the great gifts of living downtown is proximity to the granddaddy of all the local FMs, the one held on the PSU campus just blocks from my abode.  Every Saturday morning when I am in town, rain or shine, I join the slow anticipatory walk of the urban hunter/gatherers as we make our way up the Park Blocks to see what’s new and fresh and irresistible among the many offerings each week.

A blaze of brilliant colors

The market sets up in two grassy quadrangles between the student center and the library, creating a completely pedestrian-friendly and wind-resistant forum for the dozens and dozens of vendors who come from near and far to sell their wares directly to the eager consumers.  We are blessed indeed to live in a part of the world that can have available on a nearly year-round basis nearly every type of healthy and inviting comestible: fruits and vegetables with a vengeance, of course, but also meats and fish and cheeses, nut spreads and honey, baked goods, preserved foods (pickles and relishes), grains, wines, vinegars, olive oils, candles, soaps, flowers, and a few other goodies that are escaping me at the moment.  Here’s a shot of one of Oregon’s signature products – the vaunted mushroom in a range of shapes and varieties:

From deep secret places in the forest

The amount of work the vendors must invest to make this market happen boggles the imagination.  Rising long before dawn, folks pack the products into trucks and make their way to PSU.  One of the meat vendors drives from Bend, a good three-four hour drive.  “We can’t be sure we’ll be here after next week,” one rancher said to me. “The weather in the mountains can get pretty fierce.”  Once on campus, they unload their buckets and baskets and boxes and coolers of goods, move the trucks away, and set up the booths, most of which were beautifully decorated in fall foliage and cunningly merchandised to put the most tempting shapes and colors under the shoppers’ very fingers.  All this is up and ready to go at 8:30 in the morning (the local chefs are the first to arrive, apparently), then they stand on their feet selling for six straight hours, and THEN they reverse the process, repacking the trucks and vans, cleaning up the quadrangles until you’d never know they had been there and driving back to wherever they came from.  “Oh, yeah, it’s an 18-hour day,” one blooming young woman said to me yesterday.  “But we love it.”

Autumn bouquets

Part of the fun is watching some of the products actually being made in front of you.  A popular spot yesterday was the chili stand, complete with real-time roasting:

Don’t try this at home

This stand with all manner of chili products (dried, jarred, you name it) had teamed up with an organic corn tortilla vendor and was doing a land-office business. Location, location, location. In addition to showing the actual processes, some stands have delicious menu options made up on tiny stoves in their booths using their products and offering beautifully printed recipes of how those dishes can be made at home. “What?  You’re out of the Hungarian Mushroom soup already?  I told my husband we had to come here first and he wouldn’t listen to me,” one anguished customer trilled. “I’m so sorry,” said the flustered chef, “but it’s always the first to go.”  While I personally am not much of a bakery person, there was one booth that caught my eye because its sign employed a word that is a fan favorite of a special friend of mine.  JJS, this one’s for you:

Couldn’t have said it better myself

Besides food to sell and food to buy and of course coffee to slurp (this is Portland, after all), there are always a mix of musicians to create a lovely atmosphere that encourages everyone to slow down and just enjoy the ride.  Yesterday’s main stage featured this trio, delighting listeners of all ages:

Music to buy by

So what did I get, you ask?  I counted it all up when I got back home. Let’s see. Pistachio butter, carrots, turnips, Jerusalem artichoke, blueberries, kohlrabi, parsley, potatoes, prunes, pink beans, most to complement what was already in my fridge that went into my weekly stew that I cooked up today. (And, much to my surprise, a huge hunk of cow to braise and turn into stock to flavor me through the winter, from the self-same rancher in Bend.  Who knew? ) Yummmmmy indeed.

http://www.portlandfarmersmarket.org/markets/psu/

I had a blinding insight this morning in the shower.  (That seems to be where most of my blinding insights seem to come, oddly.  I thought electricity and water didn’t mix, but that’s a discussion for another time).  That being – I write less, a lot less, when I’m happy. Or, at least, when I’m not lonely.  Put the other way, I write…to connect, to communicate, to reflect, when those options, particularly in real time with real people, are otherwise in short supply.

That being the case, I had very little time to write during my wonderful four-week vacation recently in Maine (and Vermont and New Hampshire) with my bestie JJS (hereinafter J) and her wonder dog Amber.  Late summer is a particularly beautiful time to visit that particularly beautiful part of the world, and aside from the occasional thunderstorm (love those things) we were treated to many glorious warm and clear days, filled with all manner of busyness.  Oh, and some none-busyness as well, just sitting on the porch staring out over the trees to the water and sky of mid-coastal Maine.

J’s family has owned various pieces of property on a small island near Boothbay Harbor for decades.  But we’re talking *an island* here, folks.  No road, no ferry, no nuthin.  So let me set the stage a bit. Here’s a shot of the harbor where folks keep their boats in order just to get themselves out there: Ahoy, matey!

So load up your chosen vessel with all your belongings, your food, your whatever, yourselves and your creatures and head out to sea.  As you leave the harbor, here’s a view back over the dock and the lobsah shack (in truth this picture was taken on land, but you get the idea):

Once away from land, one skims across the water, watching the play of the clouds and the swooping of the birds.  I always feel a bit like Jacquie Kennedy at this point in the proceedings, a member of  American nobility about to enter the private preserve of the fortunate.  As indeed I am, aside from the nobility bit.

Once at the island dock, one reverses the harborside exercise, lugging luggage and food and pets and selves and what-all up the ramp to golf carts which serve as the sole form of motorized transport on the island.  But before we leave the dock, here’s a shot of J and A and the boat which carried us faithfully (most of the time, but that’s a story for another time) back and forth, to and fro:

Once on the island, it is as though time stopped entirely about one hundred years ago.  Aside from electricity and running water (occasionally the internet),  that’s just the way the inhabitants like it, and so do I.  Cottages are dotted about along winding paths with a few larger buildings for community gatherings.  As the same sets of families and renters have been coming here literally for generations, there is a remarkable sense of Brigadoon to this place, particularly when the mists swirl and loons cry.  Here’s a particularly lovely shot:

A slightly different angle in roughly the same location gives you another look:

Once at J’s cottage, it’s quick to unpack the things that have to go in the fridge, drop the bags, pour something cool and refreshing, and head out to the porch for some serious R&R.  I could watch this view forever.  Here’s an arty shot of the porch from inside the kitchen (aka where the computer could sometimes get a signal):

Amber loves the porch.  Not only do we hang out there as much as possible, but she can quickly spot neighbors coming to chat (WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!), dog friends coming to roam (WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!) or squirrels coming to annoy and challenge to a duel (WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!)  The woof mistress herself is one of the most delightful creatures I have ever met, and darn photogenic to boot:

I think you’re getting the idea.  Simply mahvahlous, dahling. Add good food, good friends, good walks in the woods, good trips to shore to hunt and gather, good chats, well, as the saying goes, “It’s all good.”  Sooo, pounds added, memories stored up for later, bags packed, I headed back to Portland at long last to reclaim my Portland cat Squeaky (yay!), re-inhabit my condo, and restart the academic year.  More soonish.

One of my secret guilty pleasures is hand work, as in knitting and needlepoint.  You’ll be forgiven if you’ve never seen me engage in this type of activity – it usually manifests itself in  long lonely stretches like graduate school or overseas postings.  I’m not particularly good at anything in particular, although truth be told I actually made and sold some cunningly crafted scarves at highly inflated prices thanks to the complementary hat crocheting skills of my friend Celia (this was in the pre-crash glory days of 2007; not sure that’s a repeatable event). Anyway, it has been a while since the last orgy of crafting creativity, so no one was more surprised than I when I said an enthusiastic “yes!” to my friend Barbara’s generous invitation to come out to her place in the country and to spend this past weekend….quilting.

Like with anything else, knowing the history of an item makes it all the more interesting to me – the sense of being a part of a long and and fascinating tradition – all the while getting to play with a room full of cool tools and natter away with a most thoughtful and interesting person.  I’ve learned that quilting in Europe extends back at least to the glory days of the Crusades in the 12th century as battened fabric kept riders warm as they spent weeks on horseback en route to the Middle East.   When the tradition made its way over to the Colonies in the 18th century, it was (to my surprise) only the most affluent households that had the expensive printed fabric (and more importantly, the leisure time) to engage in this kind of superfluous crafting; humbler families had to make use of woven or pressed wool coverlets with far less design.  Quilts served as a way for a young woman to demonstrate her skills with a needle prior to her marriage and then to decorated her home after taking the vows.

Barb, a dear friend of long standing, comes by her interest naturally as the granddaughter of an Amish quilter. Amish quilts both reflect their social tradition and transcend it in subtle ways.  While traditionally made only of sober and culturally approved solid colors in geometric shapes and patterns, the artisans have been able to use this constrained palette in strikingly ingenious ways.  Here’s an example:

While not constrained to only this style, Barb has been at this endeavor for some years and has built up a lot of knowledge and expertise.  She was invited to show one of her pieces in Ireland last year and has entered another in the State Fair this year.  When she invited me out to try out this sport, I held no illusions that I would be able to come anywhere near level of beauty and intricacy that grace her home.  That being said, I was intrigued by the chance to try something brand new under her guidance and to exercise a different part of my fevered brain after seven weeks of Advanced Grammar Pilates with my long-suffering summer school students.

After casting about for a sufficiently interesting (yet achievable) project for me, we decided on a doll quilt (aka cat quilt), a roughly 16″ by 20″ finished piece made up of a small selection of traditional colors and patterns that would give me a good sense of all the steps involved without sending me in search of a padded cell.  This proved to be the perfect project – challenging without being overwhelming, requiring skill and concentration but not demanding perfection.

Barb’s physical layout is impressive.  She’s got a whole room in the basement filled with finished projects, a ping pong table pressed into service as a work zone, loads and loads of fabric all arranged by color and size, a highly advanced industrial-strength quilter’s choice computerized sewing machine, gadgets of all sizes, shapes, and colors, books galore, you name it.  I knew, however, that I was in the presence of a Jedi master when I caught sight of the Wall O’ Thread:

No excuses for missing buttons, that’s for sure.

You will, of course, not be shocked to learn that I chose a project that would help me alleviate my continuing bereavement over my Georgian cat (who appears to be doing remarkably well, from the thoughtful photos I get from her new family).  In that spirit, I chose to use prints and colors that would reflect her beautiful diverse coat integrated with a black background which will match my wonderful Portland cat, Squeaky, who I was able to briefly visit last week. (I look forward to rejoining her in a month or so.)  Barbara’s cats Smitty and Gracie approved of the project, so it was a go.

Making a quilt — even a smallish one with a fairly simple pattern – is quite the undertaking with numerous sharp tools and painstaking tasks. A little personal back story is needed here.  Back in junior high and high school, I belonged to 4H (yes, true thing, actually entered cookies and aprons in county fairs) and even took sewing lessons.  It was the predominant culture in the rural township where we were living, plus, my mother thought, a useful skill for the future.  So thankfully I have old muscle memory experiences of ironing, measuring, cutting, pinning, stitching seams, ripping seams out, and so forth, which all came in handy (even if they had to be brought into the 21st century with HAL the “smarter than I’ll ever be” sewing computer).  Here’s a shot of me throwing caution to the winds and actually QUILTING (putting a thread pattern on the pieced fabrics) under Barb’s watchful eye:

Now, I should add that I certainly was not locked in the cellar and deprived of all creature comfort for 48 hours in service to the arts.  Barb and her delightful spouse plied me with wonderful meals, engaged me thoughtful conversations, and hosted me in the most comfortable room and sleeping climate (Cool breezes!  Pillowtop mattress! No 24/7 traffic drone!) that I’ve enjoyed in many a moon. I’m just focusing on the quilting bit as a way of telling the story.

So Sunday afternoon, after two pretty serious days of work, I finished up my little project with not a small amount of accomplishment.  Here’s the tired-but-proud quilter:

…and a close-up of just the piece itself, complete with the feline-approved print on the backside:

Well, who’d a thunk it?  Now plans are afoot to include two other friends in a bigger and better quilting frenzy next summer.  I’m so grateful to Barb for her generosity and expertise and for the invitation into this wildly different world than my normal academic and computer-based environs.  Now I’m interested in exploring more fabric-inspired projects as a way of engaging brain and hands.  (As Rachel would say, watch this space).

When I received the request from PSU this past April to teach in summer school (thereby returning home early and shortening my ELF assignment by a month), I was in a bit of a dither.  So I talked it over with Kurt in our favorite lobby bar over our favorite morning beverage. “You’d be a fool not to take it,” was his sage advice.  In other words 1.)  PSU didn’t consider me a lost cause and would probably keep hiring me; 2.) I’d earn some money between April and October which had not otherwise be assured, and 3.) I’d bust out of Batumi 30 days earlier. So, while there was some mild discombobulation required, I decided this was a good idea and proceeded accordingly.

The biggest challenge was simply finding a place to lay my head.  I had rented my condo through the end of August, and while I offered my tenant the chance to leave early should this be of interest, it was not, and so I was left with the task of finding…a nine-week crib from mid-June to mid-August.  This, if you’ve ever tried it, is no easy assignment.  I had several very kind offers from colleagues and friends, but most of them included multiple children or very long commutes, both of which seemed less than optimal.  The choices available on craigslist were quite spendy and would eat into much of the summer earnings.  And then I heard back from J, a graduate student at PSU in my department who was herself vacating for the summer to work in a national park.  She had a room in a shared house in North Portland with nice people and an easy and direct (if slightly long) commute to PSU. Score!

And so the day I returned from overseas I moved into The Commune.  Now this is not what the inhabitants call their residence, but it is for a me a useful term which sums up all that I like and all that has been a challenge of living here this summer.

First, the neighborhood.  You locals know that Portland is divided into zones by the Willamette River into East and West and by Burnside Street into North and South, hence NE, SE, SW, and NW.  “N” is the leftover slice to the east of the river but to the west of the I-5 freeway, the most adjacent to Washington State to the north.  Wiki describes it thus:

“North Portland is a diverse mixture of residential, commercial, and industrial areas. It includes the Portland International Raceway, the University of Portland and massive cargo facilities of the Port of Portland. Slang-names for it include “NoPo” (shortened from North Portland) and “the Fifth Quadrant” (for being the odd-man out from the four-cornered logic of SE, NE, SW, and NW).”

Yup, diverse is the word.  To my eye, while there are some charming clusters  (the villages of Kenton and St. Johns, the lovely Pier and Columbia Parks, the university (“UP”) and many pleasant neighborhood streets, the rest of the region which stretches roughly twelve square miles in a large rectangle is also characterized by long hard-to-distinguish stretches of semi-commercial arterial streets, most noticeably Lombard (on which I reside), Interstate (where the light rail runs) and Columbia (the industrial corridor). Sprinkled along the routes are….dingy but overprices mini-markets, dive bars of long standing, gas stations, fast food outlets, oversized supermarkets, martial arts studios, cell phone stores, Goodwill, and little houses, of which ours is one.  Since those streets are where I reside and also where I travel to and from school every week day, those thoroughfares have formed much of my impression of the area. Here’s the view out my window for a small sampling of the above:

Work in progress

The house itself is quite sweet…here’s a shot from the front.  My room, greatly warmed by the eastern exposure and the proximity to the roof,  is behind the windows on the second floor, right side of building:

It might not be readily apparent from this picture, but eight people live here, plus the occasional visiting couch surfer, girl/boyfriend, or family group.  Two of us are upstairs, one on the main floor (plus the guest room there), four in the basement, and one who sleeps….well, in the upper left of the following photo:

Cool breezes

Of the eight, six are regulars and two of us are summer subletees. This is the good part.  Really lovely young people, hearts and politics in the right place from my perspective, and, most importantly, all very accepting and tolerant of me and my re-entry foibles.  We have someone who manages an environmental non-profit, one who works in a tea shop, one who works in a vineyard, two who pack in warehouses, my fellow interloper who is interning for a judge, one who works in health care, and me. It’s a physically active bunch as well – folks are always heading out on hikes or bikes, going for kayaking weekends, heading to the coast, taking a run.  There’s very little emphasis on technology, lots of efforts at music and board games, an interesting variety of shared food, and always someone to chat with either over coffee or dinner or whatever. Here’s a shot of the bicycle stable, and believe it or not, a couple are missing:

No room for a combustion engine

Today, Sunday, is cleaning day, and we’ve all just put in a couple hours sweeping and scrubbing and putting things to rights….which is a good thing, because most of the time, it’s a little, er, well, casual around here for me.  I’ve always thought of myself as a neat person, not a clean freak by any stretch of the imagination, but I try to make sure I wouldn’t drop dead of a heart attack if, say, my mother walked into the room. Well, that concern just doesn’t seem to register here, and maybe that’s a good thing.  I have to admit, though, I have been a good bit daunted by scenes like this which greet me when I return from the wars:

Everything but the kitchen sink

Ah, so if that’s a little much, let’s just grab something to eat.  Open the fridge and we find…

Kombucha, anyone?

Arrrrgggggghhhhh!  Add that to toilets that are flushed irregularly and gnat swarms that greet me when I open the compost tub….and it’s been a bit of an adjustment.  Good thing I lived in a developing country for nine months before I got here…it actually has made it easier for my old-lady schoolteacher self to accept the things I cannot change, which, fortunately, will be changing for good in two weeks when I go to Maine on vacation.

Oh, and of course, no post of any significance can be complete without the animal shots…here’s Tsuga, the resident feline, sending me mind probes to walk to the fridge and get her just a little bit more tuna…

Don’t you love me?

So there you have it…the cross-cultural experience AFTER the cross-cultural experience.  Another Portland neighborhood.  Another learning experience.  Another few steps on the journey.  Until next time…

Okay, now that I got the rant below out of my system, let me say a little about how wonderful it is to be back in Puddletown. This is a very, very easy city, filled with kind and generous people.  Although I have not yet returned to my own home (it’s sublet until the middle of September and I am living in a hippie commune 2013-style; more about that later), I have returned to my own city and my own job, and both of those have been very welcoming.

My first full day here, the one after I arrived, I set forth on a set of multiple errands and a goal of trying to work off an 11-hour time difference as quickly as possible (with a lot of exposure to the sun.)  My first stop was Radio Shack for a cell phone.  Yes, dear ones, I will keep a cell phone.  And yes, Radio Shack has quite a variety, and you can get them on a  month-to-month basis, which is what I wanted.  I walked out with a Blackberry wannabe with 1500 minutes for $30/mo.  (I don’t think I’ve managed to hit 400 minutes yet, so I may scale back to the $20/mo program.)

Anyway, I only managed to escape R.S. after a 45-minute chat with the manager, a lovely young many with a reptile business on the side.  Ball pythons, to be precise. I learned *a lot* that day about ball pythons, how easy it is to care for them, how much the most desirable colors can go for, a little about their their feeding and excreting habits (one mouse a week), as well as an overview of his business goals as well as those of his fiancee.  And before you scream “TMI!,” know that I thought it was simply charming.  That certainly wouldn’t have happened in Batumi by a long shot and it probably wouldn’t happen in many cities across America.  It’s just part of what makes Portland, well, Portland.

Other stops that day included the credit union, the salon for hair and feet, the shoe store, the drug store, everything you can imagine to begin the transition from an overseas to a domestic life after not being able to buy anything for nine months, each with an accompanying substantial conversation with the employee working with me.  And then *the next day* I went in to work to help with placement tests for summer school and registration and orientation and before you can say “Jack’s your uncle”  we were off and running with our intensive eight-week summer session. No rest for the wicked.

Every year about now I swear I’m not going to teach summer school NEXT year and then every year about April I start thinking it’s not so bad (and neither is the paycheck), but it’s really a lot of work for both teachers and students.  This year is particularly challenging since Ramadan, the month-long Muslim holiday *that requires fasting – no food or water – from before sunrise to after sunset* runs right through the middle of the term.  So most of our students, on top of taking a full academic load in a foreign language, are dealing with the logistics of trying to eat two meals and seriously hydrate themselves between the hours of 8:00 pm and 4:00 am and then fit in sleeping and classes and homework during the rest of the 24.  I don’t envy them, and they bear it with remarkable grace and a noticeable lack of complaints.

So, even with weary students, it’s great to be back teaching at Portland State.  My colleagues have been welcoming, the computers and printers all work, my students are attentive and motivated, and every once in a while I get tackled in a big bear hug by a former student happy to see me on campus. We’re just about to start Week 6, and then on August 17th I will head off for a holiday in Maine for a month with my bestie.  Life is good. More about the commune in the next post.

Weird, isn’t it?  I wasn’t happy there, I was frustrated as heck, I couldn’t wait to leave, I counted the days, I hated the instant coffee every morning, it was the biggest *character-building experience* since I was abroad the last time….and yet I miss it, wonder about it, worry about it, plan to go back at some point, feel like I’m not quite here yet.  What’s with that?  The signs point to Reverse Culture Shock.

This is in combination with the fact that there seems to be no formal end to my English Language Fellowship, no ceremony, no certificate, no letter thanking me for my hard work on behalf of the American government’s strategic mission in __________________, no long uncomfortable dinner party, nuthin.  I filed my final report (minimum ten pages), repaid the money I owed for bailing early to return to Portland, and, well,  I guess that’s it.  Not with a bang, but a whimper, says the bard.  The newbies are scheduled to go to orientation in two weeks, and then the class of ’12-’13 is consigned to the dustbin of history. Sic transit gloria mundi.  (Fortunately a subset of us plan to meet up at our professional association meeting in Portland next year…that will be fun. And in the meantime, thank goodness for email.)

Wisely, my shrink counseled an altar and a ritual.  The ritual will be a little tough – she suggests trying to engage all the senses.  (You may recall there is a Georgian food cart now nearby – that will help with the “smelling” and “tasting” parts.)  A dear friend gave me a DVD of folk music – there’s three, and I’ve got the photos, so four, and now all I need is touching.  (Hmm.)  But the altar was a damn fine idea and I’ve assembled a few little pieces, that I’ll share with you…

You have the postcards of the national dress, some lovely gift earrings, the wine containers, and the music DVD.  And, of course, the framed pictures of Kitka.  It helps.  It really does, and I can’t quite describe why, but thankfully, it does.

Perhaps the hardest part is not talking about it.  Anyone who’s traveled knows this little conundrum.  “I can’t wait to hear all about your amazing adventures,” your friends crow, sincerely.  And so you start in, get a sentence and a half into something, and then the conversation goes somewhere else and never really gets back.  And that’s *perfectly* understandable.  While you’ve been away, they’ve….been dealing with 1001 issues in their own lives which are front and center while your life-altering nine months at the end of the world is really a little less crucial.  I get it, I really really do get it and I’m not angry, it’s just that….I want to talk about it, chew over it, ruminate, rusticate, remember and recall.  My best bet is to do that with other folks who are also going through a similar experience, which is probably why none of us have left the “Georgian Wanderers” group on Facebook, even though, well, we’re not wandering in those parts any more.

It would be an uncharacteristic flash of hubris for me to share with you that I got a big charge out of crafting my last blog and that I hoped you might wish to read more.  Since returning to Portland I have physically and spiritually missed sharing my thoughts in this medium. My motives are mixed; mostly I just want to think and write about my experiences and observations — and I know I just write much better *when there might be someone out there who reads it.*  Please, dear friends, no obligation, no requirement, I will love you just as much if you never visit this site, but do me the honor of letting me hold in my mind that I am speaking to a thoughtful audience.