Tomorrow I reverse the trip I took in August 1988. Back then I was a naive 17 year old with a New Yorker’s view of the country. 
When I told people that I was going to college in Portland, the first question was Maine or Oregon (pronounced AR-E-GONE). The question was quickly followed by a look that essentially conveyed “do you know you are heading to the frontier?” Now when I tell people I live in Portland, they immediately assume I mean the one in Oregon and know that it is a mid-sized city filled with coffee sipping, beer-loving hipsters obsessed with donuts. I remain amused when the people who once scoffed at me moving to Portland now extoll its virtues.
Back in 1988, I didn’t get any sleep the night before I left home. Some combination of my friends Rachel, Lisa and David Franks spent the night hanging out with me. I can still clearly remember stopping by the front door and looking back and thinking that things will never be the same from here on out.
My next memory is one of me on the plane to PDX, walkman in hand, popping in the Dead Milkmen cassette copy of Bucky Fellini and opening the paperback of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Both were farewell gifts from Rachel because of their references Reed and Portland.
I really don’t think I have truly wrapped my mind around leaving Portland. Maybe it is because last time we left Portland for a spell, we always knew that we would come back as soon as we could. Maybe it is because this has been my home for my entire adult life so I don’t know what planting new roots really feels like. Maybe because it is just too big a change to fathom in one fell swoop. Maybe it is because I know that I am coming back in July for 5 days to meet the movers when they load up the house. Regardless, I am fully aware that there will be an emotional reckoning ahead.
As sad as I am to leave my home, I do feel some degree of lightness. The move put the purge on the front burner and we have donated boxes and boxes and boxes of crap that had been accumulating for an embarrassingly long time. The last vestiges of the furniture I acquired while in college will be donated to live out their remaining days in Portland.
Tomorrow morning I move back to New York. And I keep catching myself looking around my house and my city and thinking, once again, that things will never be the same.