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by Patti


Our family just returned from a week-long getaway to Portland, Oregon.

Oh, Portland, do you know how beautiful you are?

Portland is where I finished high school and made life-long friends.

Portland is where I smoked clove cigarettes and went dancing at Skoochie’s and listened to Alphaville’s “Forever Young”, and felt it.

Portland is where I acted and sang on stage and embraced my Thespianism to its very core.

Portland is where I met M.

And after almost 15 years of living there, I moved to Chicago with M.

We left behind the beautiful Pacific Northwest with its heaven-touched coast....



but being young and tethered only to each other, we were also excited about the prospect of nightlife and high rises and restaurants that stayed open past 10 pm.

We have now been in this crazy snow-blown city for 15 years, and we love it -- for the most part. (Because, really? SEVEN MONTHS OF WINTER?)

Yet. There is something about Portland and the way it smells like pine needles when you step out of the airport. There is something about the way Mt. Hood glitters in the distance. There is something about Portland's many looping bridges and the way they proudly cross the Willamette River.

There is something about going home.

Because that is what Portland has meant to me: home.

My family moved around like nomads practically my whole life, and it was in Portland that I finally experienced what it is to have roots, to have friends for more than one school year, to have a place that no matter where you go, you feel like when you go to that place, you are home.

I hadn’t been back to Portland in nearly 10 years when we went this time, and it was strange how the second we left the airport and hit the highway, I just knew where I was. The roads and street signs and trees and river and bridges, they were all imprinted in my brain like a perfect map. Yes, there was growth - lots of new restaurants and shops and businesses - but the heart of what I remembered was the same.

And as we drove past the little burger shack where M and I used to eat The Best Veggie Burger on Earth slathered with melted Tilamook Cheese, and the bus stop where my mom used to wait for the bus that would take her downtown to work, and the bridge I used to cross with butterflies in my stomach to get to M’s house, and the path I used to jog on Sunday mornings, and the store that my best friend in high school and I dropped off our collected cans to for weekend cash, and my old house with its big kitchen window that faced the street, and the hill where I learned to drive stick shift, and the condo my family lived in when we first moved to Portland that had that awesome pool where my best friend and I scorched ourselves into oblivion all summer, and the bagel store where I always ordered extra cream cheese and two chocolate chip cookies, and the exit off the highway that led to my first “real job”… as I passed all of these places, the memories of each one vividly danced up before my eyes, and I was transported back to a time of innocence and freedom, and for a minute, I felt nostalgic and a little sad for that time now gone.

But then, with my daughter by my side and M’s profile against the window, I realized: Yes, Portland is beautiful, and it holds many memories for me, but my home is no longer a place, it is people. And no matter where I go now, if it doesn’t include them, it’s just not home.