In Eugene, I slept on the couch of an Herbalist. If, in slumber, I leaned too far to my left, the cushions would slump, sink, at a diagonal, pulling my unconscious body down with them. At 3 in the morning I’d awake to the sound of crickets outside the double doors a nuzzle of black fur, a cat named Mortimer, pawing, climbing his way towards me, then settling on my chest, his breathing slowing…
Portland is white. Portland is, in fact, 70.4% white, according to the most recent U.S. Census. Last Saturday, the white-nationalist, far-right group “Patriot Prayer” conducted a racist protest in Portland. When Portland police officers were called to the scene, they responded with pepper spray and stun grenades, attacking not the white-supremacists, but the anti-facist, anti-racist, counter-protesters instead. I missed the commotion. I was on a Saturday morning 10-miler organized by the Portland Running Company, weaving…
The first time I wondered if I knew America was when I moved to Iowa from Connecticut for college. I couldn’t remember the first time I saw the ocean, but looking out over the endless fields of corn and soybeans for the first time seemed as close of a comparison as I could imagine. In Iowa, billboards advertised tater-tot stuffed cheeseburgers and the only vegetables I could discern in my veggie omelet were canned…