This was not on my 2024 bingo card...
After a year of grief-traveling, grief-wandering…I’m back in Portland. My final stop in the grief carwash was in a village in the south of France called Villeneuve-les-Avignon, just across the river from Avignon.
It had everything. Two patisseries, a few organic grocery shops, a bank, a church, cafes and restaurants, an excellent weekly flea market, and a robust weekly market. It was darling without being instagrammable.
It was in March that I looked around my airbnb and realized…it was time. It was time to exit the carwash, get back on a plane, and fly back to Portland. Portland, the city I divorced in 2000. And 2017. And 2023. But I needed to sort through my mail. The mail my friend so lovingly collected for me, figure out where my head was (and my heart), pay taxes, obtain income, and generally collect myself.
Also, I was missing feeling known. The last 12 months was a solitary, hard journey. I was missing some friendships, the feeling of being known by someone. The familiars in my life. I love being outside the US, if only for the familiarity. I love it for the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the iced latte made just how I like. Hell, just having ice is a strange comfort.
Part of my grand plan was applying for a French long stay tourist visa. In order to complete that feat, I needed to be back in the states. I had an appointment in San Francisco last month, which needed to be rescheduled for tomorrow, which…has now been cancelled, along with my nonrefundable flight ticket. The only thing missing was a contract, income to show the French government I could support myself.
In the month since I’ve landed, it’s been…the strangest thing. This entire year, I thought nothing was happening. I felt terrible, sat in my grief, waded through the muck, nothing really seemed to budge.
Until I got to Brittany, France.
*Reader, put a pin in that…📌 I’ll write about my two months in Brittany in another stack. It’s full of French wintery goodness.
In France, things started to coalesce, ground, settle…like grains of sand in a shaken glass. It wasn’t all smooth sailing but gradually, eventually, I came together. It was then I started to feel the journey wind down, lose steam, direction. I realized oh…it’s time. The days on my Schengen calculator were counting down, and I had no other desire to go anywhere but back to Portland. I had mail to sort through, taxes to file, income to secure.
I needed to properly exit the carwash, close things down, bless them and clear myself for what’s next.
Which…here’s the thing. I swore UP AND DOWN that I would not live in Portland. I’m here for a visa thing, and then I’m bouncing. I had a WHOLE PLAN. A plan that is currently, gently, yet firmly, being rearranged.
Portland and I have a complicated relationship. It’s a great city, gorgeous landscape, a food scene. It’s hip. I first fell in love with Portland in 1997-98. I had an ex from college that moved here. I might have been slightly obsessed with him. Ergo, I became obsessed with Portland. It’s a city filled with my painful memories of loss, dissolution, ex-boyfriends, friendship breakups…some of the hardest times of my life. The last time I was here was in the middle of covid, and let me tell you…this city had gotten rough around the edges.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all bad back then. I grew and expanded, met wonderful people, got heavily involved in my local farmers market…I always thought “why can’t I fully connect to anything here?” So many reasons why….
But..for the first time ever…I’m not hating it here.
It’s springtime the trees and greenery are lush and twenty shades of green, everyone is out. And then there’s that warm woody smell Portland emits during this time of year. I finally feel like I have a stake in this city. I pay taxes here, have an Oregon license and phone number.
Everyone here loves/hates Portlandia, but man did that show nail the take-me-back-the-90’s aesthetic.
I wonder if the timeline has shifted for the better. I have this unexpected desire to soak up the Pacific Northwest spring and summer, reconnect and strengthen friendships, and embark on a new journey of who I am now, post-grief, post….everything. Eventually I’ll want to leave again, it’s just who I am.
But now I all I want to do is ground, solidify, integrate. Dust myself off, see what happens, enjoy the warmth…exist without the burden.