Moving to Portland – Dear Liza

900th Blog!!!

Dear Liza,

June 30, 2017, almost three and a half years ago, was the day of my first blog. I had come up to Portland by plane, then the Red Line train to get to downtown, where I had lunch and met an itinerant poet named Shannon. Then I took a bus to Auntie Katie’s house. The next day I picked up the keys to our first apartment here in Portland. I signed papers, measured the new place, and flew back to Salinas.

Shannon the Poet in front of Powell’s, 2017

That day was a good omen of my life in the city so far. I have pushed myself to walk further, get around on public transit, explore further afield, chat with all sorts of folks, and spend more time on my own.

Auntie Katie and I going out to “Hamilton”

I have written about dinners out, concerts, zoos, and parks here in Portland;

vacations to Seattle and Vancouver, B.C.;

trips back to Salinas to see you and your family and friends;

and some less-fun trips to hospitals and doctor’s offices.

And lately, I’ve written about coping with NOT being able to do those things.

Writing this blog, now 900 essays long, is part of the coping. Writing how I feel makes it real and solid and more manageable.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Strange Realizations

Dear Jasper and Kestrel,

This morning, the day after my big retirement shindig, was very quiet and slow. I am generally a get up, get dressed, get out and do stuff sort of person, but today I was still in my pajamas at one in the afternoon.

Liza and I played with her new huge set of Legos from Anne Crawford. It took over an hour, but Liza persevered and got it done. I literally stopped and smelled the roses that we had arranged for the party. I got to look at my lovely cards from friends, some of which accompanied a bottle of wine. I have such sweet friends here, which are really the only thing I will miss.

No, that’s not true.

I have lived in Salinas 36 years. I know , I would guess, more than a hundred people. I know where things are, which buses go where, how far a walk to this place, what the weather will be like. I even know this house, Uncle David and Auntie Olga’s house, better than I know my home in Portland….since it was purchased in February, I have slept there just 22 nights.

So what I will also miss, at least for a while, is familiarity.

But familiarity is also what I’m deliberately moving away from. The same houses on the same streets in the same neighborhoods. This feels reminiscent of moving away from home to go to college…ready to move, but anxious about change. Tired of the old, but worried about losing the comfort.

But your Great Grandpa Lowell was an optimist, and I am too. Time will march on, bring the new, make it comfy and warm. I will find my new normal, my comfort zone. I will put down roots in my transplanted soil and thrive.

Love, Grandma Judy

Coming Back Home

Dear Liza,

Yesterday you and your Daddy David drove me up to San Jose so I could fly back up here to Portland. Grandpa Nelson has surgery this week and I want to be here. There are papers to sign, of course, but I also want to keep him company and make sure he is comfortable. Auntie Bridgett has been taking such good care of him, but I miss him.

The Minetta Airport at San Jose was monumentally crowded. It was a full hour from when I walked in the door to when I pushed my carry-on bag through the x-ray machine. The TSA agents kept opening up new loops of lines, like at the Pirates of the Caribbean on a summer afternoon. Those of us feeling like we were going to miss the Portland flight bonded in line. Weird sculpture at San Jose

Flying into Portland was wonderful. The Spring weather had been warm and sunny all week, but changed to welcome me home with heavy grey clouds and quite a pelting rain. Seeing Ross Island and the bridges on the Willamette let me know I was back. For unknown reasons, we flew over the west hills rather than around the east side of the city, so I enjoyed a very different view.

Then Auntie Bridgett and Grandpa Nelson met me and we hugged and walked, and walked and hugged, to get my suitcase. I brought home books and other things that are heavy but I won’t be needing my last four weeks in Salinas. It will make packing in June easier, I think.

Then, we were home! My new house on 33rd, which I first saw on the Zillow website in January when my two people started looking at it. When I was here last, in early April, there was no furniture except the piano. It was our house, but it wasn’t a home yet.

But these two wonderful people have been working so hard! Furniture is in, IKEA bookshelves assembled and loaded, and the new couch from Dania gives us a three person sized place to hang out and be together. All the necessities of life have been put away in their proper places.

However, I still don’t know where those places are. At breakfast this morning, I asked every time I needed something. “Sweetie, where is the cereal?” “Where are the tissues?” And I know that just about the time it feels familiar, it will be time to return to Salinas and my Other Life.

Speaking of which, I am realizing why these transfers from Salinas to Portland have felt so jarring. It’s not just that I am in a different place, it’s that I need to be a different person. The expectations of me in each city are very different. As Mrs. Drueding and Grandma Judy, I am endlessly cheerful, patient, and able to adapt my needs to whatever is required at the moment.

Other people’s schedules, arrangements, meetings. Five phone calls in one lesson? “Hello, Room 10”. Watching the kids in the back row passing notes during a math lesson, deliberately NOT noticing and deciding what to do about it while keeping the lesson going? Make it work and keep smiling. It is stressful. It is exhausting. It is why teachers go home wrung out every afternoon.

And of course, in Portland, I am not Mrs. Drueding. I am Judy in the next to the end house. I am Mouse’s other mommy. I am that woman hunkered over old maps of the city at the Historical Society Library, working on a story. I am part-time Grandma Judy to Cousins Jasper and Kestrel.

I have a different life here. And I will have fun living it for a week.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Farmer’s Market in Hollywood

Dear Liza,

This morning we woke up to another very sunny day. I know that this winter it will be dark and rainy, so I am appreciating the sunshine. I just keep drinking nice cold water.

Grandpa Nelson, Auntie Bridgett and I drove (it was only about 2 miles, but it was hot already and we would be carrying groceries back) north to a neighborhood called Hollywood. This is a very pretty area with older houses and beautiful, shady trees. There are funny shops like the “Do-it-Yourself Pet Laundry ” and “The Wet Spot–Your Place for Tropical Fish”.

We were there to buy fruits and vegetables at the Farmer’s Market, at NE 44th and Hancock, just off Sandy Street. In the land around Portland are farms that raise all sorts of fruits and vegetables. There are Farmer’s Markets in lots of neighborhoods on Saturdays. Whatever is ready to eat, you can find it. The market was in the parking lot of a big supermarket, and the pavement was painted with crazy fruits and flowers.

After walking all around the market we bought a little bit of lots of things: 10 fava beans, a small basket of blueberries, 6 tiny yellow squash, a rosemary plant in a pot (you know you need that for roasted vegetables) , some basil, and a small sausage.

There was also music by two people playing a drum and a cello, but it sounded different from any music I have ever heard. They called themselves Gaeasoul and I want to hear more of them!

Some of what we bought

Then we realized we were hungry, so we walked down Sandy Street to Laughing Planet, a place for burritos, bowls, and sandwiches. It is delicious and fun, too. There are about 30 toy dinosaurs you can just pick up and play with, then put back when you are done. There is also a giant painting of Godzilla and Robbie the Robot on the wall.

As we were walking around the neighborhood we saw a shop called “Bricks & Minifigs”…. it is a shop where you can buy legos! Not in a kit or in a box, but

just the pieces you want! It was amazing, like legos had escaped and were playing by themselves. There were also armies of Lego figures, all lined up. I will take you there and we will pick some interesting bricks.

By 1:00, it was time to drive Auntie Bridgett way east to Division Street and 84, to the Zine Symposium, a place where people who make small magazines get together to share and talk. She will take the #4 bus back when she is done. I hope the bus is air conditioned.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Up to Our Eyeballs

Dear Liza,

I am sorry I haven’t written for a few days, but we have been working so hard that by the time we are done, I am too tired to think. The moving truck with all our things came Saturday morning at 7:30. We were still in our jammies! Fortunately, we are fast dressers.

We each took a job: Auntie Bridgett directed where all the boxes would go to be stored in the basement, Grandpa Nelson checked off boxes as they came off the truck, and I made sure the fellows put the furniture in the right rooms upstairs. There was also a lot of lifting, sliding, shifting, and screwing things together. Did you know the legs could come off our piano bench? Neither did I.

After 5 hours of hard, hot work, the team of Francisco, Kenny and Rick finished up and packed up their truck. We walked to Babydoll Pizza on Stark for much-needed sustenance. Their arugula and goat cheese pizza and Thai basil soda gave us the will to go on.

Every day since then has been the frustrating job of opening a box, unwrapping it, piece by piece, to see if there is anything we need in the next year, and then re-wrapping most of it and putting it back in the box. This has been a lesson in the definition of the word “need”. How many coffee cups, really, do we need? How many wine glasses?

But we kept at it. Grandpa Nelson got the tv, internet and computers hooked up, Auntie Bridgett has her office almost the way she wants it, and I can cook in the kitchen and write in my office. We can find towels, toothpaste, and socks. Still no sewing set up, but that will come. My mosaics will probably have to happen in the basement, to save the new floors upstairs.

In between working like dogs, we have enjoyed walking around our Laurelhurst /Kerns neighborhood. Old Victorian and Craftsman style houses, huge trees, lovely little parks, friendly dogs, and great shops and restaurants are all over and make getting from here to there so much fun! We have had a delicious Bangkok bowl at Canteen on Stark Street, ice cream at Fifty Licks and Gelato Staccato, and beer and peanuts at Migration Pub. I have cooked fresh caught salmon with smoked goat cheese (!) and organic chicken with tons of garlic.

We have also discovered our local movie theater, the Laurelhurst, up on Burnside. For $5.00 a person ($2.50 for seniors like me), you can watch a movie while eating pizza and drinking wine, beer, or soda. There are about 6 screens, mostly second run movies, but very affordable, fun, and delicious.

When you come up to visit, I will show you all the fun things here. I miss you very much.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Ready to Leave Salinas

Dear Liza,

Tomorrow I start my new life in Portland. Leaving Salinas for such a big city will be exciting and a little bit scary, I think.

I will fly into PDX airport and take the Red Line Max train to downtown. This train is part of Trimet, the name for all the trains, busses, and streetcars in the city. There is an app I can load onto my phone that lets the phone be a ticket for all of Trimet. That will make getting around easier.

By the time I get downtown, I will be hungry. I know there are lots of interesting places to have lunch there. I will walk until something looks (and smells) good. I will tell you all about it.

After lunch I will walk around and look at the city. There are statues, fountains, tall buildings, and even little parks all over the place. There is also the Willamette, a big river that divides the city into two parts, west and east, and there are ten bridges that cross from side to side. Each bridge is different!

After I have explored downtown, I will get on the number 4 bus and cross the Willamette on the Tilikum Crossing Bridge. It is the newest bridge and is only for busses, trains, bicycles, and walking…no cars! I can get off the bus and walk past Auntie Katie’s bookstore and then to her house. I know where the key is, so I can get in and cuddle with her cats, Wanda and Pietro, and have a nice quiet evening.

I will tell you all about my day tomorrow!

Love,

Grandma Judy