On this final day of the year, I honor my 20th anniversary of coming to Portland, easily one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
On December 31, 1991, I headed out of Missoula for the final time as a Montana citizen. I had a couple of bucks in my pocket, the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera I’d inherited from my dear mom, and a lost feeling in the pit of my stomach. The preceding years hadn’t been awful, but I had lost both parents, finally graduated from the U of M and cast myself adrift in the world of restaurant work. I didn’t know what I was seeking, only a real, true sense that I needed to search. At the time it was hard to describe to anyone who asked.
“Why are you leaving?” they begged. “I dunno. Something to do, I guess,” I answered.
And that was true. I didn’t know why I was leaving. I only knew the time was right, and I didn’t want to squander an opportunity. There were many times, during the 80s and early 90s when I thought I would stay forever in Montana. But I had an itch to “get on with it.” So I put all my worldly goods in storage, bundled up a few changes of clothes, my first laptop computer, (a glorious Texas Instruments beauty I’d sunk all of my savings into), and began to harbor a fervent hope for a more fulfilling life. I set out that morning with my friend Elaine Kloser and headed to Portland to begin a new job with the Young People’s Theater Project. (I’m delighted to tell you that particular organization is still going strong.)
My life was to take a surprising number of turns before I found myself, now 20 years later, thanking my lucky stars I chose the way I did, and left the most comfortable life I’d ever known to wander.
In the following year, I was to travel to some 22 states in 5 months, performing, letter-writing, learning to knit, and thinking about what I wanted out of my life. My life. My life. I can’t stress that enough. I was bound and determined to start defining my life.
I spent the following summer (my last full-time summer) in the mountains of New Mexico, working with my friends at Brush Ranch Camps. On Labor Day the following year, I found myself pulling into Portland at the peak of a very dry summer, not knowing whether I would stay or end up in Seattle. A few weeks later, I was auditioning for a musical directed by Alana Beth Lipp, who I married the following Labor Day. I began teaching high school at Thomas A. Edison that fall—a challenging but utterly fulfilling job. But in 2001, I found myself once again yearning to “get on with it,” so I drifted quietly across the Columbia River to Vancouver, Washington and started yet another new life as a writer at a small, yet mighty concern called AHA!—a marketing and strategic communications firm.
And now today, as I endeavor to put in words all those things that have been stuck in my head, I can’t help being overcome with gratitude. For everyone, everything, every word. It’s funny, I ran the death clock yesterday … found out I’m a little more than half way through. I have a long way to go. But for now … I thank you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I feel like I’m just now starting to find what I’m looking for.