I feel like a good rule, when I don't know what to do because I am feeling all of the feelings, is to write it out. At the very least, I will have another blog post at the end of it, right? *
I just saw a really great looking article about places to eat in PDX on twitter. I mean, it's got a bit of "I was there first, so I am better" b.s. feel to it, but it also has my favorite ever music venue and my favorite ever donut shop so it's not all bad.
And of course am stupid and when I saw them mention a coffee shopI didn't know about--lilkely because it is new--I googled for it, grabbed the street view, and felt my guts hit my throat because of this:
click here to embiggen
This is a pretty innocuous photo, really. Right? Just a sunny day, and...a huge line for a donut shop. Okay.
But I cannot tell you how many times I have been on that street, in that place.
It was part of my life before full-time work when I would camp out all day at Stumptown and pay $1 on the counter and skip the line since I was there for drip coffee and sometimes get props from the cute midwestern barista that recognized my slapstick t-shirts.
After I got the full-time job it was a place I would go during my lunch breaks for donuts for my team or to get an americano for me (and maybe a coworker) in order to help fuel the dark afternoons of playing catch up.
Half a block away I'd wait for the 12 to take me to 57th and Sandy or, later, the 12/19/20 to get me back to 18th and E Burnside.
We had boys and beers at Berbatis, which used to have a music venue entrance where VooDoo is now. And when I left the full-time job behind, I became very acquainted with Johnny Walker Black because of some the best coworkers a man could ask for.
I think maybe this place--not the corner, but the city--might be where I became a man, if that's what I am now, at thirty-five.
It is certainly where I became my own man.
I miss it in my gut the way I used to pine for it--before I moved there--and feel in my bones that I belonged there.
I so did. And I still do.
I've been doing the April 30 days stuff! But the results are not all here--they are scattered on PDX Rock Poet and some other places. Hooray though!