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All things considered, Portland is a beautiful city. It has an underrated food scene, brewskies out the ass, and — the one thing no one seems to mention — it’s accomplished the paradoxical feat of being both very green and very white.
It’s both strange and true to say I flew to Portland to be miserable. Instead, I’ve been telling people that my sister is moving there and that I want to spend time with family, as this is less strange but still technically true.
I hadn’t talked to my family much in the past couple of months, not since That Thing happened. Half of the phone calls have been tearful; I stopped calling and so did they. My mom says some things are too sad to speak on — and also, as I’ve learned, too sad to write about. I’ve tried, in my notebook at the beach, on my laptop in bed, in this essay. Each time, an invisible hand reaches into my chest cavity and squeezes.
Anyway, point is, my family isn’t one to grieve together, we just… grieve next to each other. Which takes us back to Portland.
When I see my parents’ visage at baggage claim, I don’t recognize them. This is because they have shrunk. Not metaphorically — they are physically smaller now. I turn to my sister.
“You excited to move here?”
“Nope.”
That night at dinner, we poke around some sushi. People always seem to describe loss as a vacuum, a black hole. To me, it’s a presence that’s pulled up an extra chair at the table, a visitor who brought an unwanted casserole to the potluck.
My sister is engrossed in the NBA game playing on the restaurant TV — when our grandma died last year, her coping mechanism was to become not only a basketball person, but also a huge fan of the worst team in the league, the Minnesota Timberwolves. My dad nibbles on his tiny bowl of seaweed salad — in Buddhist tradition, you abstain from eating meat for 49 days after a loved one has passed. It’s already been a couple of months since That Thing, but he hasn’t been able to eat meat since. My mom quietly mentions how accommodating the hotel is to guests’ dogs.
As for me, I sink into the bathtub that is familial familiarity. I am tired, the kind of tired you feel when you are finally able to let down your guard.
The Vivien in San Francisco has bounced back. She corrals dozens of people on bar crawls, hosts open mics, makes pho for friends. She travels and camps and throws ass at the club. She holds her breath and moves at a million miles an hour because god forbid she has the time to exhale fully. That would be the real disaster.
There is no one to grieve with, so she tries not to grieve at all. Grieving alone is slamming her palms against the steering wheel of her Honda Fit, the only place she can be alone, as she scream-cries louder so it feels like there’s someone else there, someone crying with her.
Who wants to do that? Talk about YIKES!
Sorry, where were we? Right —
A case of the blues does not stop us from exploring Portland and the surrounding suburbs. We are sad as we sit on a bench looking out on the river, and also while we eat shitty Vietnamese food, and also as we drive from mattress store to mattress store. We are sad in our own little bubbles.
These four bubbles of sadness end up at the Portland Japanese Garden, where I imagine the white men of Portland meet their Asian wives. There are water fountains constructed from bamboo half-pipes and stones. Red maples and bonsai tree displays edge the courtyard. Two structures, in the shape of human heads, face each other. They are about to kiss and never will.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if we lived here?” my mom says. “This is what I want, to live somewhere like this, on top of a mountain.”
My dad makes us pose for a picture at every turn: the waterfall, the pagoda, the bridge, the overlook, the rose garden, the huge zen garden, the koi pond, the rusted fountain with no water. I wonder if he is trying to stop time in its tracks, rushing to fill the empty walls of his memory museum, but I don’t bring this up.
We sit down for a shakuhachi and piano performance. The singer’s voice is strong and clear; the shakuhachi sounds like falling leaves. Suddenly it feels like the invisible hand is in my chest and squeezing again, so I excuse myself and sit in the courtyard by the bonsai trees.
A sunbeam shines through the trees and lands at my feet; I watch the dappled light dance back and forth. A very short woman and a very tall man walked past; I wonder who they are to each other.
This is a beautiful place, I think to myself, and the invisible hand loosens its grip a tiny bit. I think about how if the holistic nature of human emotion was a many-layered bean dip, grief would just be one layer among many others. I think about how misery needs understanding as much as it loves company.
Right when my nose begins to prickle, I see my mom and my sister walking towards me. When they get close I notice their eyes are red. All three of our sadness bubbles merge into one big sadness bubble.
“Do you think I could come back with Oscar’s ashes next time I visit?” my mom says. “Only a little, no one would notice...” I take her hand, small and frail like a bird’s wing, in mine.
I turn to my sister.
“You okay?”
“Nope.”
I couldn’t begin to explain why, but that was the answer I was looking for.
ugh. I wish I could read so much more. This is a gift thank you