I've got a job offer in Portland, and have been looking for an apartment. So, I found this place in Southeast, this place that seemed nicely located and cheap and such, and met the landlord, a guy who looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, in the empty apartment. I told him my situation, and asked him if I could rent month to month. He said no.
He also told me not to sign a lease. Anyone's lease. I'd already been thinking about that, really, that I don't want to be tied to anything, and he confirmed it out of nowhere. The landlord, it turned out, was an ex military guy who'd been stationed abroad for years, and told me all about how he'd lived in Jerusalem and Syria and gotten moved around the Mediterranean and Middle East. He was obviously nostalgic about it all, obviously wistful and such, but that didn't make hearing about it any less interesting.
"This is the saddest place you can come back to," he said, meaning Portland, "there's nothing here." I don't know about that, it seems like there are probably a lot of sadder places, a lot of places with not much going on, and I think I can definitely have fun in Portland. But, I see his point. Maybe he thought of Portland the way I think of Eugene.
So this guy said, "Keep moving!" and I said "Okay," mostly because he, like a good comedian, just said what I was already thinking. I'm not going to join the army, like this guy did, but I'm most of the way through a Peace Corps application and am definitely not going to sign any leases.
I don't believe in god, spirituality, or anything like that. But, it is nice when chance encounters seem otherwise, when the course of events seems to tell you something. Paying attention to your environment, talking to people, that, it seems, offers its own kind of divination.
Hmm... I always thought of Portland as a pretty exciting, happening sort of smaller city. I would definitely consider moving there if I weren't here. If you want to go somewhere where there is SERIOUSLY nothing going on, try Rawlins, Wyoming. You'll be bored stiff.
ReplyDeletePeshawar, Pakistan ain't so hot, either...
ReplyDeleteHey Joe has a blog!
ReplyDeleteWe met a couple people who were just finishing with the peace corps when we were abroad, I get the impression the work is highly variable, and as a result so is people's satisfaction with it. I totally get what you're saying about Eugene/Portland being nice and yet unchallenging and ultimately depressing, kinda like the womb. I bet you'd like the peace corps. Here's another thing to consider - one of the guys getting out of the corps said that it's good if you don't know what you're doing, but if you know what you're doing you should just do what you want. Like, land yourself in Africa, live there for a year, and then just start doing stuff, making stuff happen. It's easier than you'd think. It's pretty much what the WWOOF host we worked for in Ethiopia was doing, and he was just some dumbass like us.
For me, I don't think anyplace in the U.S. would be challenging and interesting enough for me, so I'm just going to live around Eugene (eventually). Part of the problem is I don't like cities. At the same time, when I get sick of it I can always run off to the Middle East or Africa. Turkey's good, for a less destitute but still incredibly dynamic society. And for a challenge, Syria (a bit Koran-thumping) and Jordan (progressive, but poor).