PORTLAND LIVING FOR BEGINNERS

Like real life, living in Portland doesn’t come with a guide book.

A book might seem like a good idea from every new thing you read and hear about the city, but at the end of the day you’re screwed if you think living here is some kind of paint by number life.

Just like real life, shit happens in Portland the same as every place else for everyone living there.

There is some comfort knowing you aren’t then first nomad to set their sights on Oregon and shoot for the stars. If Portland is your star destination based on reputation, brace yourself.

Whether you’re moving to the areas version of Big City from Tillamook, or K-Falls, or NYC at the end of a three day nonstop bus ride, the most important part of the program is finding someone committed to the city. One person who refuses go let the city get under their skin and chase them back to where they came from is all you’ll need when it gets under your skin and makes you feel like moving on.

Big Time

In spite of the corporate view of Portland as a stop on the way to more rewarding opportunities elsewhere, sticking here isn’t a mark of shame.

If Portland, and by Portland I mean the metro region, feels like the place for you, welcome aboard. If the timing is right and where you are feels right, go ahead and say it.

Does it feel like you want to say you’re settling for less than your true potential? That if you don’t take the next promotion and move up the ladder the rest of your cohort climbs, you’ll be seen as a quitter who deserves to be left behind, abandoned, cast aside?

Well, it’s true.

I recently cruised through Jakes for a quick dinner on the way to The Gerding and Jane Austen. Instead of using the dining room entrance on the side, I dragged the bar from the corner door. Why? I wanted to see the up and coming class of Portland people with the expression that says, ‘Man, they were right, this is a bad idea like they said in the home office. How long do I have to stay in this backwater?’

I saw the crew in their rugged Ralph Lauren ‘off-duty’ costumes. Creased jeans over shined shoes topped a freshly pressed shirt tucked into a signature buckled belt. It was a ‘You never know who you might be seen by so it’s best to fit in with the locals’ look.

The men in their thirties and forties all posed with their best sides out. They looked like a magazine cover for an out of town publication to show Portland isn’t full of lumpy old hygienically challenged Reedies.

The dashing dudes milled around like gym rats waiting for a shower on my first walk through. On my way out they were replaced by locals in their rumpled splendor shoveling Happy Hour appetizers. That was a relief.

Sticking Around Portland

If you plan on sticking in Portland, and you’re a man, those two stereotypes are what you’ve got to look forward to. The longer you live here, the greater the chance you’ll grow your hair out too long, get fat, and buy a guitar for your second act.

All of the work friends on your Christmas list will move off to Seattle or LA or Chicago or Atlanta and send warm wishes a year or two after they leave, then stop. That radar for the next big thing in your industry? You’re not on it.

Friends from your former life will thin out like your work friends. You don’t have room to put them up in any sort of comfort in your over-priced Eastside post war bungalow built with Army surplus once you fill it up with guitars and amps and PA and mics. Your family will stop pretending to care about you after you’ve fallen under the Portland spirit.

But you won’t notice. Why?

Listen, whether you call home a two-by four uninsulated firetrap, or a Northwest apartment overlooking an asphalt beach parking lot that reflects heat fifteen degree hotter into your summer window, or a suburban ranch house with two cats in the yard, life can be hard.

Portland just makes it easier to live untethered to the past. Hell, we’re on the edge out here, the edge of glory on the North American continent. Where else can you say that?

Move to California and you’ll get a Hollywood vibe from the rest of your world. It won’t help when you start slicking your hair down and wearing Ray-bans everywhere.

Drop anchor in Washington and you’ll get depressed living among the advanced minds planning a future for the rest of us. Is it an Amazon future or a Microsoft future? Starbucks future?

If you’re a Portland temp moving on after you do your time here, congratulations. You survived.

Plan on sticking?

Loosen up that belt and have another Hop Valley Alpha Centauri, bruther.