I am writing 100 How-To essays. It is a big project. Here is why I am doing it. This is essay 38 of 100.
First, two brief anecdotes, separated in time by twelve years.
2004: I lived in Portland, but I was about to leave to go to college. I was going to go to college with my high school boyfriend, Ben. We’d bonded over a lot of things: an interest in making top ten lists; an allegiance to Homestar Runner; an earnest love of several shitty emo bands no one’s ever heard of. And also, we’d bonded over our mutual love of the city in which we were both born and raised: Portland, Oregon. While traveling out of town (I have no memory of where), Ben sent me an email, which has long been lost to time. But I remember this line: “I love that I can tell you that this is the second best city in the world, and know that I don’t have to tell you what the first best one is.” He was right: the first best one was Portland.
2016: Working at the newspaper at my grad school, I wrote an article called “Why ‘Portlandia’ Had To Die.” In it, I mourned not the loss of the television series, but the loss of a city I once knew: “The Portland I knew faded into something with fewer hippie old ladies and decidedly more plaid,” I wrote. At parties, when I told people I was from Portland, I didn’t sound proud, really. I interrupted myself to assure the guests that actually, I knew that Portland sucked, and duh, that’s why I don’t live there anymore. “Everyone is exactly the same there; so generically hip,” I would say, sipping an IPA with “bicycle” or “spectacles” in the name.
My opinion of Portland between these two stories represents a drastic change, and I remember when it happened. It was my first year out of college and I lived in New Orleans — which struck me as an even cooler place to live than Portland. My roommate was going to spend the summer in my childhood city, though, and I was excited to tell her all the things to do and see and try. “It’s an amazing place,” I told her. “You’re going to love it.”
But my roommate did NOT love it. She had complaints. She disliked all the toast restaurants. She felt that people were too pale. Everything had too many birds. Too much twine. Too high a reliance on mason jars. She was too cool for Portland, it was clear. So slowly, I started to see that I needed to be too cool for Portland, too.
I started to talk about gentrification in Portland with anyone who would listen. I — a white person — talked about all the terrible white people who were coming in and ruining my beloved childhood home. When I brought boyfriends out to Portland to meet my family, I apologized for all the Helvetica and ampersands; I rolled my eyes whenever I saw the word “farm eggs” painted on a menu.
In the past two years, I’ve noticed that I have stopped talking so aggressively about what’s wrong with Portland, and I’ve started to shift my ire to New Orleans. New Orleans is growing, too; it keeps on being popular with the righteous and the woke, and it’s small enough to be still actively pushing out people of color whose families lived there for generations. Too much partying, I say. Too many costumes. Not enough realistic jobs. No one even knows who Sidney Bechet is these days! Plus, you know, I don’t live there anymore. It is easier to dislike something than to really miss it.
I’m in Portland now, and I have been for the past week, waiting for my sister to give birth. As I write this, she is about a week overdue, and I’ve been here since last Friday. I thought I would be here helping to tend to a living infant, helping her pass the time while a baby slept or cried or puked nearby. But instead, I’ve been helping her pass the time just like I would help her pass the time on any other holiday: we are going out for big meals, or long walks, or to see movies downtown. This visit is forcing me to confront all the things I still love about Portland.
Here is the truth: There is something to like about every city. There is probably something to like about every rural area, too, but cities are so intentional. People chose to build them where they built them because they had resources and stuff to offer; they are inherently worthwhile as far as a landscape is concerned.
And also: People who seem cool are great at hating stuff, even stuff that’s wonderful. Try to wax poetic at length and in earnest about something you really love, and watch an ocean of cool people swarm the rhetorical comments section with all the reasons you are wrong to love the thing you love. This is the world we live in, and it’s ok. Let’s not blame people for being haters: it feels safer and less vulnerable to hate than to love. Loving is incredibly courageous, and we cannot expect everyone to be ready to do it.
Last night, Alexis and her husband drove me to NW 21st Street to a new-ish frozen yogurt shop called Eb and Bean. It had a whimsical blue bear painted on the front, and horrible, non-threatening, vaguely modernist furniture. All the chocolate bars on the wall were $12 each and had, like, notes of turmeric and chives and golden raspberry flakes in them or whatever. Aesthetically, it was mockable.
My fro yo order. YES PLEASE, SIR.
When I was in high school, I used to take the bus all the way to the SE side to go to this little vegan soft serve place that’s long gone now; you could pay $3 or something and get a basic vegan vanilla cone, and I loved it so much that I happily went to it in the pouring rain. Those days, none of the vegans (there were fewer of us) could have imagined the kind of bounty that exists for plant-based eaters today. Eb and Bean was a treasure trove of dairy-free riches. I ordered an almond based golden milk soft serve with marionberry compote and toasted hazelnuts. And this was a fairly tame order: Alexis got mascarpone and cinnamon cocoa ice cream, and Robert had at least one flavor that had “just the right amount” of rosemary in it. And look: I could not complain about what I was eating. It was VERY GOOD. And this is horrible, and I feel bad about saying it, but it is nevertheless true: it was a lot better than any of the vegan soft serve in Chicago.
In general, Portland has better vegan food than Chicago. I’m not saying Chicago isn’t doing a great job — it is! — but Portland is doing a better job at this particular thing. Everywhere has a vegan option. Twice we have gone to Back to Eden Bakery, which was in high school a hole-in-the-wall pastry shop for vegans and has now doubled or tripled in size and expanded its menu to include breakfast and lunch. In other news, I got a vegan hotdog at Ikea for 75 cents. Portland is just superior at vegan stuff.
Winter bird watching in Portland with Robert and Alexis.
And it is better at grocery stores (barely, and depending on what you need), and it is better at gift shops, and book stores, and even (I say this begrudgingly) public transportation. All this please take with the following caveat: I LOVE CHICAGO. IT IS MY FAVORITE. I bought a house there and I don’t think I am ever moving. But Portland is GREAT. Today provided the clincher: we went walking in a light snow flurry around a lake, and the birdwatching was outstanding. We saw two bald eagles screeching at each other, kinglets, bush tits, towhees, a hermit thrush, multiple waterfowl, a downy woodpecker, a brown creeper, and more than one species of sparrow. It was SNOWING. Portland has better birdwatching. I hate saying this to you, but I’ve always known in the back of my heart that it is true. People in Portland are better to the land than people in most other American cities.
Both Portland and Chicago are racist, both places have major class issues, both places have crooked politicians. Both places treat their homeless like shit sometimes and sometimes do right by the homeless population. Both places have amazing people and terrible people and, ultimately, a lot to love and a lot to complain about. And why not lump New Orleans in there, too? Because all those things are also true in New Orleans. And also in New York. And in Philadelphia, and in San Francisco, and in Boston, and probably even in Santa Fe (although I’ve never been there). Cities are complicated. Everything is.
But I feel that I have been cowardly to be putting down Portland, especially when it took such good care of me as I grew up. I rode the bus in middle school, and I learned to appreciate rain. I learned the names of perennial flowers and I was encouraged to recycle, compost, and vote. I am not sure I would have become a vegan if I had grown up someplace else, and I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be a birdwatcher. People have moved here because it’s wonderful. Across the street from Eb & Bean was Cinema 21, my favorite movie theater in high school, and it looks basically exactly the same — crumbly and neon with a slide-letter reader board. There are institutions that have survived the influx of new folks who have moved here to call Portland home. We can’t blame those people, either! Portland is an awesome place to live.
So I’m coming out: I love Portland. It’s great. It’s not just a great place to visit; it’s a great place to stay. And ditto that for New Orleans, no matter what I may have complained about last week. And ditto for wherever it is you live. There are always things to love and there is always work to do. The brave thing is to own your love, and because you love your place, to give yourself over, even just a little bit, to make it better.
Visiting Portland? Here are my favorite things to do there. Keep in mind that I have not lived there in 20 years, and there are a lot of cool new things that I don’t know anything about. These are all kind of old school, but I love them all the same:
Go to Powell’s. It is as good as they say it is, and it is not overrated at all.
Any and all exclusively plant-based restaurants are the best in the country.
I grew up loving The Paradox Cafe, and their vegan nachos are still among my most-craved foods. While you’re there, go to The Avalon, which has a nickel arcade and a dollar-something theater.
Walk along the waterfront. Cross a bridge. Look at the river.
Forest Park. Westmoreland Park. Mt. Tabor Park. Laurelhurst Park. Anything that says “Park” after the name is worth going to. But, Forest Park is one of the largest urban parks in the United States, and is basically just a forest, and you should go into it and walk in there.
The Portland Art Museum is just an art museum, I guess, but it also fueled my love for art, and I would not draw or paint if I hadn’t visited.
In the spring, find a rose garden. There are two good ones for sure, but there may be more.
The arboretum.
The Japanese Garden, while we are on this kick, is lovely and expansive and I think has a good gift shop, although I’ve never done that part. Portland has some really good exchange programs with parts of Japan, and that has made this garden particularly rich and interesting.
The Central Library, and by the way, you should visit The Central Library in any city you visit.
Floating World Comics. Things From Another World. RIP, Counter Media
The Pied Cow is this old hookah and dessert bar that was magical when we were younger. You could sit in little corners in there and drink tea that tasted like dirt and eat lemon bars, and later when I decided I liked hookah, I sat outside and smoked it and wrote poems and felt deep and smoldering and lovely.
The different vintage and second-hand stores on Hawthorne are still good, even as that part of town has gotten shinier and newer. I think you could start at The Red Light and then walk either west or east and you wouldn’t be able to go wrong.
My first grown up dates were had at Coffee Time, which is still there and is open late and seemed to be bumpin’ when we went to Eb & Bean last night.
St. Johns is a fun neighborhood, and it always has been. Then you can go across the St. Johns Bridge, which is the prettiest bridge, and feel like you’re in a ghost story.
Sauvie Island is the best birding place I have been to in North America. And also, there are nude beaches there, and I think those are beautiful and important.