travel

Good Morning, Anxiety

Last night I worked my last shift, again, for who knows how long, again. On November 18th, Multnomah County goes on a “freeze” for four weeks, possibly more. My restaurant isn’t open Mondays or Tuesdays, so last night my coworkers and I said our goodbyes and wished each other good luck.

I understand it’s inevitable.
I understand it’s for the greater good.

It doesn’t make the impact any less threatening to my livelihood or mental wellbeing.

I’m not angry at Kate Brown. Or the virus. I’m angry at the world. At our lack of cooperation. At the anger and hate that’s been spewing amidst this sickness. As if a divide and dislike of each other will ensure our immunity.

It saddens me to see this city’s walls fall to hate tags, streets strewn with garbage, seemingly more people on the streets than off them.

I was born at St. Vincent’s three decades ago. I have lived many other places but continue boomeranging back despite my family dissipating to other states. It is still my home, and I’ve always harbored romantic “grass is greener” fantasies when living in Manhattan, LA, Malibu, Santa Barbara. All of these lively, beautiful places I said goodbye to because Portland felt superior in my mind.

Then why am I riddled with thoughts of escape?

It could be the drive-by shooting I witnessed last Saturday, (casualties also including my car and neighbors apartment) that claimed the life of a homeless man living 20 feet from my front door. His tent is now a makeshift memorial, amidst the dozen others on my adjacent sidewalk.

It could be my coworker’s bike being stolen right outside her living room window.

Or the hit-and-run I witnessed yesterday morning, by an extremely angry truck driver and the victim in a Nissan Leaf. Screw you, truck driver. Pick on somebody your own size.

It could be the morbid articles my friend sends me daily, detailing the aforementioned hate put into action.

Though perhaps it’s just the reality that I’ve now lost my job for the third time this year, due to circumstances out of my control, and it feels as though I’ve time traveled to March, though a few things are different. One being the lack of federal help to individuals and small businesses. Now my boss gets to man his takeout operation with no help, 7 days a week, because he can’t afford to pay any of us to come in.
Second being, we are not on the brink of Spring, but of its evil cousin, where the days continue to shorten and rain continues to fall.

Not all of these realities are Portland’s fault, but they are all my reality living in Portland.
I know logically that other places are experiencing this with us, but I can’t turn off the fight or flight instinct in which my fight has been drained for months.

These situations together have allowed an anger to seep in to my soul, and it makes me feel likeminded to the atmosphere here. And I do not want to be likeminded.

I want my happiness back.

If you unfold these layers, Portland is still beautiful. It still smells of the crisp, fresh air I’d thankfully fill my lungs with after a flight from NYC.

The leaves continue to change, heedless of a pandemic, ignorant to political tension. Their autumn hues going through the exact same process in 2020 as they did in 2019.

The view from the top of Tabor Park, sitting on a bench overlooking all of Hawthorne, allows you to imagine a different world. The tiny cars at that distance, trundling up and down, could seem like a snapshot of any other year in the past decade.

Our residents have a pride for their state that the US would envy.

We accept tourists and transplants, are eager to share all our hiking secrets and brunch knowledge.

We are a kind people.

But we live in a world where we’re told not to socialize with others. Keep your distance, don’t travel unless necessary. No frivolous outings, take-out only, cover your face. We treat each other like a disease, which is not far off from what we’re trying to avoid, but it’s turned into more than that. We are being trained to avoid each other. They didn’t lie, it is indeed the new normal.

I now watch movies and marvel at the strangeness of all the naked faces, cringing at close contact.

It is hard to remember our love for each other when we can’t show it or see it in a passing smile. Our muted affection has allowed other unseemly emotions to surface.

My best friend asked me if I wake up with anxiety like she does. I said every day. Like something bad has happened but it slipped your mind, and you’re just left with the feeling, unable to pinpoint exactly why it’s there. I joked that if we could harness all the anxiety in the US, we’d have clean energy for a millennium. Clean and nervous.

Do me a favor in this lockdown: read a book, write a letter to your loved ones, order takeout from your favorite places, shop locally, do kind things for yourself. Allow time to breathe and reflect and remember that everyone is a person deserving of love, despite the hideousness of judgement these past few years have brought. Hate begets hate. Kindness and understanding beget compassion and respect.

Oregon is so much more than our current reality, and the sun will one day shine on our mask-less faces.

The Truth About Selflessness

He clicked on the link in the email from his parents, a URL labeled “Vacation Rentals Around the World”. Apparently, they were members of this fancy anywhere-in-the-world timeshare and wanted to share it with us. The room was dark, but the light from the monitor illuminated the stubble on his face and his unbuttoned dress shirt. I sat on the bed behind him, helping him muse over the list of available locations. We were in our tiny one-bedroom apartment in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It was January and freezing, and I was wrapped in the faux fur blanket I stole from the couch. Sometimes, in this apartment, with its exposed brick wall and coffin-sized kitchen, I’d feel the walls closing in. But not now. Now, through that URL link, the whole world was open.

I was still getting used to this lifestyle. My parents split when I was 12, but before that, in the final days of their struggle, we hopped from motel to motel trying to stay afloat, following job opportunities. One week, we couldn’t scrape enough together for a motel, so we stayed at the gymnastics academy where my mom worked the front desk. We’d sneak in at night, my parents, us 4 kids and our dog, and sleep on the slightly bouncy floor where the girls in leotards did their routines hours before.

Once my parents divorced, we went with my mom, which created more stability but still saw us in Section-8 housing, buying 10-pound bags of rice and sewing patches in jeans.

I met Blake in May of my 19th year. We quickly bonded over our shared love of fantasy books and poetry. The connection felt instantaneous, but he left a week later to travel Europe for the summer. During that time apart, we wrote each other constantly, the emails stretching on like novellas. He came back early, for me, and we spent the rest of the summer together. But he was moving to NYC in August, starting his first year at Columbia Law. I visited a couple times before he asked me to move out for him. And, in October of that year, I did. It was my first time officially out of my mother’s roof. I had just turned 20 and knew nothing of the world.

His parents had afforded him a lifestyle I was completely unaccustomed to. Their house sat on a lake, boasting four stories with an elevator. They paid his way through life, including a monthly allowance higher than anything my bank account had seen. They paid our rent in Manhattan, a luxury I could not fully appreciate until much later in life. And now they were insistent on sending us out of the country for Spring Break. I had never been out of the country; I didn’t own a passport. Easy solution, his parents expedited one for me on one of our visits back home.

Now it was January of the following year, we had known each other 8 months, and we were planning an international trip.

He read through the options slowly as we scrolled, “Paris, Belgium, London, Barcelona, oh look New York City, Prague, Edinburgh…”

As he listed them, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Europe wasn’t the first place I wanted to go. I felt spoiled even considering that, but I had a relentless image of Mayan ruins in my head.

He sighed, turning to look at me, “Where do you want to go?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Belize.”

“Belize?”

“I know it sounds silly, but they have some excellent ruins there, and caves with sacrificial victims still in them. And if you feel more like the beach, they have that, too.”

I waited for him to scoff, but rather he looked considerate.

“Well, I have done Europe three times already.”

He did a search on the site, yielding zero results of Belize, or anywhere in Central America. So much for a travel-the-world site, I thought.

“That’s okay, we can choose from what’s listed. Europe has ruins, too,” I was already imagining what those might look like when he closed the link entirely.

“No, let’s just book it through a Belize site.”

I was taken aback; I didn’t know that was an option. So easy, just to decide to book something. No thought of prices, availability, etc. Just assuming things will work out in your favor. It was a mindset I was beginning to understand. Money buys ease.

Two months later and we were waiting in the John F Kennedy airport. There was a bird in the rafters. The ceilings were high. White and industrial, with fluorescent lights at the very top, like tiny suns that wouldn’t let you sleep. It was dark outside, and rainy. The windows lining the walls were black with the sky, reflecting the light from inside. The bird would fly towards them, then back to the pillars. Confused, I thought. Keeps thinking the grass is greener but realizing its all the same. I wondered if the grass would be greener in Belize.

They were burning their garbage. I was on a small, cramped shuttle van, with the words “Cheap Rides” spray-painted on the side in an ominous red. It was taking us from the airport to the jungle cabins where we’d be spending the next three nights. The whole ride, I couldn’t take my eyes away from the window, where the ramshackle neighborhoods we passed looked like the locals had put them together themselves. Baked mud for the walls, the roofs an array of large-leaved plants. And they were burning their garbage.

This fact alone I needed to digest for longer than the shuttle ride. My mind was racing. I started my undergrad in Anthropology, the study of people. I spent a good amount of my free time observing strangers. Watching people meet up for coffee, discerning if it was a first date or an old friendship. Taking note of the feeling of crowd’s at theme parks, in concert venues, at protests. Enamored at how people affect people, how intimate relationships work and how often people’s true nature comes out in public. But I’d never seen anyone burn their garbage outside shacks.

I’d only ever studied people in atmospheres I was familiar with. But here I was in 2011, 20 years young and bewildered, having landed in Belize only an hour before, intent on coming to study the culture, be awestruck by the Mayan ruins. I did not account for the poverty. My heart hurt as I watched the figures standing around their burning compost, dirty and half dressed, many of them children. My eyes rimmed with tears as I was hit with the sudden realization of my Western life. According to the Pan American Health Organization, “Belize’s 2009 Country Poverty Assessment found a child poverty rate of 50%, which exceeded the national average of 41.3%”.

We arrived at the jungle lodge. A little piece of luxury amidst the wilderness. The abodes were made to look like huts, with straw strewn on top, the rooftops with a point in the middle, like a teepee. There were ten of them, all connected by a wooden bridge to keep us off the jungle floor. The bridges also led to a commune area in the middle of the property, where cafeteria tables let us eat dinner together in the evenings. To the left of the dining area was a large field, exotic plants lining the outside, that led down to a small body of water. Our rooms were quaint, with Wi-Fi, a bathtub and a window overlooking the lake. The air smelled heavy with green life. I brushed my fingers over a leaf from a low-hanging tree. It was large, bigger than both my hands. A plant I had never seen before, in a world I had just arrived.

The man that ran the place was an expat from Australia. Despite his white skin and thick accent, he was incredibly knowledgeable about the country. He had a dozen activities we could choose from, so we lined our few days there with as much adventure as possible. It was easy to forget the level of poverty an hour from our resort when we kept busy.

The second morning we headed out early with a group to spelunk a nearby cave with, you guessed it, sacrificial victims still on display. The cave was cold and dark, as most caves are, and the glow of our bobbing headlamps created an air of surrealism, like we were in a Nancy Drew murder mystery. But unlike the lightheartedness of young adult books, the death here was very real. Under the careful direction of our tour guides, we each took turns climbing a short, wobbly ladder imbedded against a rock wall. Five rungs, then a clear view of the top. A woman, they told us. Stabbed in the heart and through the back. The bones arranged tucked together, wrists and ankles tied. She looks so small, I thought, and in the same position in death as she was at birth. I looked in eyes that were no longer there and wondered if they held fear in her last moments. Did she believe she was dying honorably? Was she willing?

That night, most of us melancholy after the day’s excursion, we drank wine with our fellow travelers, ate a delicious meal prepared for us by the kitchen staff, and fell asleep to the peaceful sound of Howler monkeys. If you haven’t heard the melodic songs they lull you to sleep with at 3am, I encourage you to google it.

On the third day, we took a six-hour bus ride roundtrip to see the ruins. It was only ten miles away, so I was confused at the reported length of the trip until we turned onto the side road. Quickly the journey went from paved streets to a dirt one lined with massive potholes. The small bus we were on decreased its speed and made dramatic turns left and right to avoid them. Belize has a network of roads consisting of over 1,900 miles, but only 357 of those miles are paved. As we blundered along, I saw a smattering of tattered huts, stretching out for about a mile. Close to ruins themselves, I thought. Halfway through this small village, I noticed a gathering of people in the same, dirty clothes. Maybe 30 in all. A few were raising their hands. Curiosity got the best of me, and I made the tumultuous walk to the front of the bus.

“Excuse me, but why are they in a crowd?”

I saw the bus driver’s eyes flick up toward me in the mirror, then right to the small crowd, then back on the road. He was wearing a baseball cap promoting Belkin beer, and had a white tee on inside out.

“They’re having a town meeting, if you can call it that. They meet twice a month, maybe more, maybe less, to see if they’re sharing provisions equally. If some are low on food or water, others share what they have.”

The simplicity of this effective kindness struck me. Such a selfless and obvious act, helping your neighbor, and yet so foreign in the States. I didn’t even know the names of our neighbors in NYC, or the neighbors in my mother’s apartments. The way I had been raised was to keep your head down, figure out your own way through life and don’t ask for favors. But with these people, they weren’t favors, they were second nature. It was how they all survived, how they continued their little village.

I understood then their struggles. I could relate to the tattered clothes, the hunger, but I doubt they shared the same shame I had when friends saw where I lived. The high school I went to was upper middle class, and I had always struggled to maintain an image, to at the very least be accepted, if not popular. I always envied how much my friends had, how big their houses were and how happy they all seemed, going to the mall as they pleased and ordering expensive food from our school’s cafeteria. I had a habit of sitting in the corner of the bathroom during lunches, unable to afford to eat and not wanting to be seen not eating. I secretly resented them for not offering me a dollar or sharing their lunch. I was always wanting a community to help my family, but now I see my family was my community. My mother and all my little sisters, we were unnaturally close due to our struggles. My sisters would mend my clothes, style my hair, console me after bad days. My mom was always trying to be as creative as she could in the kitchen, making what we had into fun meals. We were ‘forced’ to sit together for dinner every night, but I saw that now as her struggling to keep us together, to keep us feeling as one. Despite our trials, we had each other’s back, as the people in this village had one another’s. I only felt shame because I was thrust in world’s different than mine, but the people holding their bi-weekly meeting had only themselves, they were so far off the road to tourism and civilization.

As we passed them, I saw the whole group laughing and pointing as a small child danced near the front.

The folk I saw burning their garbage days back, I was suddenly sure that they were happy. They had their struggles, as did all humanity, but I was sure they found happiness in their own circumstances. Trials of life vary from individual, but they can all result in the same appreciation for what you have. I imagine all the people I had seen living their lives in their huts and worn clothes had joy in their own ways, and that they didn’t consider themselves as unfortunate as I first labeled them. Who was I to decide how sad they are, how aware of their statistics in the world they are?

Touring the ruins later that day, I had a new perspective on the people that occupied them thousands of years ago. I imagined their daily lives, what they shared among themselves. I imagined them holding village meetings and passing along provisions to those in need. I imagined their laughter and their pain. I pictured the funerals and births and wondered if they celebrated birthdays with the same manic importance that we did. They held their calendar in high esteem, after all. I wondered if a small, dancing child had ever made them laugh.

Works Cited

Belize. Health in the Americas. https://www.paho.org/salud-en-las-americas-2017/. Accessed 5 August 2020.

The Roads and Highways in Belize. Barefoot Services Belize. June 2016. https://barefootservicesbelize.com/the-roads-and-highways-in-belize/. Accessed 5 August 2020.

Rising from the Ashes

Downtown Portland is a scene out of an apocalyptic novel. On the bus to work, I sit in one of the few available seats for social distancing. I keep my gaze out the window and my hands safely wrapped around my bag. We drive down empty streets, the lights still flicking through green, yellow, red, although there are no cars to heed their allowance.

At my stop, I mutter a muffled thank you to the driver through my mask and open the push-doors with my elbows. It’s sixteen blocks through North West Portland to the restaurant I work at. We’ve been suspiciously busy, but I assume it’s the loyal throng of locals that have been patiently waiting for a shaken martini since March. Graffiti marks buildings as far as I can see; Not even artistic, just messy. Buildings are boarded up on both sides, a feeble protection against the protestors that will be coming out for the 59th straight day tonight. Graffiti marks the protective boards as well.

Tents blemish the sidewalks everywhere, some in large groups and some sitting alone. I pass a small, cheap blue one, set up alone next to a manicured tree. The tent flap is open, and there is a woman sleeping inside. I wait for the crosswalk at the next block and can’t help but breathe in the sharp scent of urine, strong even through the filters of my mask. Sometimes, safely past that area, I’ll take off my mask when no one is around, and breathe in the clearer air of summer. It is the air of honey and pine trees, sap and water nearby. It’s at these times that it smells recognizable, like the city I love and grew up in, a city that is boisterous and weird and proud. I am able to conjure up old memories, even as I cross the street to avoid walking past an especially large tent convoy, not necessarily because they are dangerous, but because you really don’t know. The only people out on the streets of downtown are the ones that live on the streets of downtown. And, as someone who has volunteered many hours to the homeless of this city, I know they are largely harmless, but that mental illness and drug use may make them unpredictable. Just like staying away from the protests at night, it is better to be overly cautious this summer.

I pass a restaurant on my left, a large, red brick building with a beautiful dark wood sign proclaiming Andina. They haven’t yet reopened. I ate their last August, just before my birthday. I was with a good friend, and afterwards we hopped on two of the city’s electric scooters and rode all the way across town, taking a pedestrian bridge that overlooks the Willamette. We went from North West to South East in a little over an hour, laughing and speeding through old neighborhoods, keeping out of the way of people and cars. Our biggest concern then was running out of battery.

As the Travel Portland website states, “What’s good for tourism is good for Portland.” The numbers for 2019 alone are impressive. The website boasts that the Portland region welcomed 8.8 million overnight person-trips, and that visitors generated $5.6 billion in direct spending. The travel industry itself in the city is responsible for 36,930 jobs. As far as tax relief goes, travelers generated $277.8 million in revenue, easing the tax burden from local and state residents, according to the site.

This is where Portland receives a double negative. Not only is the city not accumulating all that precious tourist money this entire year, but it has been destroyed by protestors and rioters. At the top of the Travel Portland website is a dark grey banner that hangs down over every page, gravely warning about the protests, stating, “violent confrontations have occurred, exercise caution in the area, especially late at night.” Luckily, I’m home by ten thirty most nights, but I’ve heard stories. I’ve seen wounds. Once this fiasco wraps up, what will the city be left with? An enormous clean up mess, paid for by taxpayers.

I, like all my fellow Portlanders, still have hope. We are fiercely proud of this city we live in. Of the man buns, the overalls, the plaid shirts and plethora of tattoos. Of the exalted love around bookstores and coffee shops, the hundreds of Mom & Pop shops that we pray will reopen. The beauty of the residential neighborhoods, each house unique and ancient, sitting eternally under a canopy of foliage, where trees from both sides of the street grew up and out and wrapped arms with each other. We watch the episodes of Portlandia and shake our heads in denial while laughing, knowing full well that their portrayal is entirely accurate if slightly exaggerated. We all smile with our eyes, desperate to convey our humanity and kinship with half our faces covered. Keeping an appropriate distance as though we fear each other but dreaming of the days where embraces and handshakes rule again.

We are not the only city suffering. The need for tourism reaches far past the confines of the Portland Metro area. Chicago, New Orleans, New York City, Houston, Las Vegas, Nashville, and all the cities beyond are all hurting this year. But beyond these, to the rest of the world. According to an early June article by Yasmeen Serhan with the Atlantic, Europe’s tourist industry is looking at losing 100 million jobs this summer, with revenue falling by more than a third. She smartly states that, “Restoring tourism isn’t just an economic necessity for the continent, but also a cultural one.” Even when, or if, the world returns to a place where we can freely cross the pond to Europe, travel will look very different. New safety measures will be in effect, from flying to hotels, shopping and eating, it will all look drastically different than it did in the summer of 2019. And this is something we must be okay with, so that one day we won’t have to be.

I Can Still See Your Eyes

This was going to be the year I traveled more. I had been breathing life into a Europe trip for months, painstakingly mapping a route and selecting Airbnb’s at each destination. It was all paid for and planned, so much effort and excitement, the first time I’d be traveling by myself, just to prove that I could. To do something scary for the sake of doing it, to trust myself in any situation. I had even included my mom in the last half, paid for a cruise for the both of us. And then, COVID.

Just like that, I was out of work. My lease ended 6 weeks after I lost my job, and I couldn’t afford anything else, so I went and stayed with family. Almost 30, unemployed and living with my mother, with a lot of international cancellations to make.

Here’s the thing, I’ve had ample time to wallow in negativity. I think we all have. For all of those that suffer depression, I am praying for you. For all of those that feel isolated and hopeless, you’re always in my mind. We have had TOO much time to think. During a season of deprivation and isolation, the biggest loss I feel is being able to smile and seeing it returned. Not only has our depressed economy been wearing a giant frown anyway, it’s ‘asked nicely’ (and in most cases forced) to put a cotton covering over any semblance of happiness left on our faces. We go around town seemingly robotic and unfeeling, unable to make out words spoken, to discern the mood of the guy in line next to you, to offer a kind grin to a passing stranger. We have lost our personalities and easy politeness, replacing it with 6 feet of fear and hesitation.

I figured it prudent that I make a list of all the good that has come out of this, even if I’m grasping at sanitized straws:

  1. CHANGE! Okay, I know not everyone is a fan. Some people enjoy their daily routine, remiss if unexpected obstacles get dropped in their way, but look at it this way – As we age, time speeds up. It’s a scientific fact. (Not really.) Days blend into weeks blend into months and then you’re using a walker. Memorable events break up this monotony. Life changes mark the passing of time, making it easier to look back and remember these days clearly. Oh, I have to move into a much smaller apartment and I’m counting my pennies now? Cool, I definitely won’t forget this.
  2. Cleanliness. I’ll admit, I have always been very aware of the dirt around me. I wipe my phone down with alcohol wipes every night. I make it a habit to not touch my face. I open public doors with my foot or elbow. I love having clean hands. So, in light of our current normal, everyone is getting these exaggerated habits of hygiene drilled into them. Also no one breathes down my neck in lines anymore.
  3. I get to find a new job! That sentence sounds like it’s dripping with sarcasm, but I promise, it’s not. I actually enjoy joining a team. I tend to only make friends at work (different blog post topic), so my work space becomes my social hour (while still over achieving my role.. looking at you, future employer). New beginnings are always full of hope; Despite all the bullshit I’ve gone through, I still genuinely believe that.
  4. A damn appreciation for the world we once knew. I have no idea when we’ll all stop breathing our own carbon dioxide, or when Citizen Cope will reschedule his Portland visit, or if the now-September Jo Koy show I had tickets for will actually happen, or when I’ll witness the beautiful, beautiful restaurant industry blossom again, but I can promise you I will never take these wonderful luxuries for granted ever again.

We will make it through this, people. And for the love of all that’s holy, just be KIND to one another. One day I’ll be able to laugh without sucking fabric in my mouth.

Ainslee