10.16.08 displacement

Today Dani called to say that she is visiting Exeter, which reminds her of Evergreen except populated entirely by Paris Hilton clones.

Now that is a mental image!

She will be in the UK long enough I can almost certainly arrange a visit, even if I have to take trains to exotic destinations like Brighton. Hurray!

The phone call kicked off an afternoon remembering things like the night lots of Chorus members congregated at the Jockey Club (grubby dive bar in North Portland later demolished) to play Truth or Dare, and Byron Number Two made out with a taxidermied moose, someone stripped, and the smoking hot ambiguously gendered bartender kept throwing down shots, then danced on our table.

When the bar closed we staggered a few blocks to the house where Ana Helena lived and she cooked a feast of corn tortillas with cheese and salsa verde over an open flame.

I don't think Dani was around that particular night, but now she lives in Italy - the closest person in geographic terms offering a connection with those times. Ana Helena resides in Barcelona or other Spanish locations part of each year. The rest of the Chorus is similarly spread across the world, with only a small number sticking to the old haunts.

Back in Portland, the Chicken House is just four blocks away from my old home. The 19th Street House is a short bike ride away. There are dozens of friends I would dearly love to spend more time with, shops and cafes like Reading Frenzy and Half and Half that I adore.

But we would not be singing together regardless, because I was not the first to hit the road.

One of the significant features of my homesickness is the knowledge that even if I went back to the same exact place, it would not be the same experience.

My kid laments his displacement in extravagant, exquisite language. I listen and offer comfort but it always seems that, while he truly misses the place, what he is grieving is not the loss of a community or homeland but rather, the end of his infancy.

I completely agree.

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