Home (Portland)

Let me just say - Virgin Airlines is the only airline that I ever want to fly.  Like, ever again in life.  When you first walk onto the plane, or at least during their evening flights, there are purple lights everywhere.  Almost black-light-esque.  They are in the entrance and all along the tops of the overhead compartments.  I felt like I walked onto a fucking party plane or some Vegas status VIP plane shit.  I was expecting lots of red, considering that seems to be Virgin's overall color scheme.  I'm glad I was wrong. 

The seats were more comfortable and there was no one sitting between me (window seat, duh) and the weird Portland woman in the aisle seat, so I was able to sit cross legged which instantly made me about 100x happier.  The TV system they have puts JetBlue to shame.  I mean, bitches have a god damn remote control that comes out of the arm rest and you use it to control the touch screen TV like 5 inches away from your face.  Now, that's what I call LUXURY.  They have options for On Demand movies but I didn't feel like paying $3-$8, even though that's a pretty good deal -- but who needs movies when you have DirectTV at your disposal? Not me. 

Looked to my right, watched the sunset over the clouds, saw Reno light up with it's prostitute and drug addled night life.  These are the things I live for.  Then there was darkness.  I kept thinking of the Twilight Zone episode with the monster on the wing of the plane.  I was in 11F.  Window seat - right next to the wing.  I wished for monsters but received none.   

1 Diet Coke, 1 Xanax, 2 episodes of South Park, 1 episode of The Daily Show and 1 episode of The Colbert Report and BOOM - I was already descending down to Portland.  Now that's how a motherfucker should fly.

When I saw the blinking red lights of the pointy Marquam Hill towers, my heart kickstarted.  I might be a Los Angeles girl who loves the extravagant grit and grime of the city and all the people that I love there -- deeply LOVE -- but years ago, Portland and it's fucking trees I tried to hate for so long and rain that causes seasonal annual depression stole my heart and put it high up in the cloudy atmosphere, never to come down again. 

And then there's Taco.  But truly, I suppose that HOME is wherever she is.  She holds her heart in my heart - just like the over-circulated e.e. cummings poem.  Yet, I haven't had a concept of HOME since I left mine, in 2005 to be a crazy 18 year old on my own, thinking that life was going to be easy.  Thomas Wolfe was right -- You Can Never Go Home Again.  All you can do is create other ones along the way.  Portland is one of my many homes and no matter what, it always will be. 

I was created in Salt Lake City.
I was raised by Los Angeles.
I was refined by Portland. 

There are bits and pieces of me that yearn for LA again already -  to walk out of my house and see the ocean staring back at me.  To fall asleep next to the person who loves me with all their heart.  To wake up and go to my job that rules harder than anything I could have ever imagined.  BUT -- for the next couple of days, I am going to soak up every minute of doggy time, kitty time and Mommy time that I can.  Because I know, that the moment that I leave - my heart will empty again... like the tide coming and going.  Portland embraces me and wraps its arms around me and completes me in a way that is incomparable to anything.  Oregon is truly the most beautiful place my eyes have ever set sight on.  To fall asleep here tonight puts my mind at ease. 

It's like a long lost lullaby of my early twenties.  This city taught me how to be a human being. 
I am forever in debt.