Landing

I highly prize that feeling of not waking up each morning to trudge to a job that I hate, one where I am constantly thinking, “There are so many better things I can be doing.” Granted, I’ve never been unfortunate enough to work a job I truly hate, but I have had some that are less-than-inspirational. Is this a generational thing? Seemingly, older generations—-particularly, those who endured the Great Depression—-have a quality of perseverance that folks from my generation (which one I am again? X? Y?) lack. I’ll never get used to the feeling of walking into an establishment with an application—-any store or service—-and feel small. That eventual revelation that I am not a customer, but that I need the warmth found under the wing of employment just like everyone else: this is humility. That, and perusing Craig’s List multiple times each day.

I am job-hunting right now. Today I went to an interview for a before-school pre-school position. The woman asked me how I would discipline a three-year-old in a classroom. Can three-year olds even talk?

We are partnering right now.

My girlfriend and I, having spent half of our three-year relationship 3000 miles apart, are living together in a very nice basement belonging to a couple of my college friends, one of them my next-door neighbor my freshman year. We are sharing a bed again, are cooking meals together, and sometimes we have important talks. Sometimes we argue, and say things like, “I don’t understand why you always…” We cuddle and make love, too, and have jokes that make sense to only us.

We are exploring.

Portland is a city of underground magazines and progress. Everywhere we go the entry room is decorated with floppy, thick newsprint detailing missions and urban adventures of which we would like to be part. Green initiatives, organic food, artistic venues, places to drink, public transportation, music, martial arts, book clubs: at times we are overwhelmed by the possibilities (and the cost).

We are yogaing.

Yes, we are going to yoga. We are contorting our bodies to positions that supposedly have some kind of mystic purpose, and though I can speak only for myself, I mostly feel pain and a kind of junior-high-gym-class level of embarrassment. Did someone just see my butt crack? I sweat and grimace and Mizuho thrives due to her flexibility and petite body type. Most of the positions have Indian names, ones that everyone in the class seems to understand except me. My favorite position is called “child's pose”—it’s prone, laying your stomach on your knees with your hands stretched way out in front of you. It requires neither flexibility nor existential wisdom.

We are getting lost.

Within the span of a day, we are guaranteed to get lost. Correction: I am guaranteed to get lost. Forget the fact that I read maps and guide novices in the wilderness for a living. Urban travel for me is a different dragon. I often suspiciously wonder if some travel demon changes the streets on me, always preventing me of getting back the same way I came and subsequently dumping me out in some industrial park. Mizuho is patient, and when I imply we are lost with my go-to expletive—-Ahhhh, shit!—-she never plays the most notorious of female aces in the sleeve: “We should stop and ask for directions.”

We are reminding.

Everyday, we are reminding ourselves that what we are doing is okay. It is okay to not have a job every second of the year, or even half the year. We remind: risks are okay, and irrationality can often be the only way to discover value. In other words, it is sometimes okay to wake up, read, and then go out for dinner. We remind ourselves that this period of time is but a small piece in our lives’ jigsaw puzzle, a scintilla of mineral in the canyon of world history. We remind ourselves that having all the answers mean you are absolutely wrong, and having none of them means you are living rightly and justly.

I remind myself to not take each and every day so seriously, and to shave after getting out of the shower.

We are in a library now. We have secured a quiet room in the back of the east end, and she is quietly studying and I am writing this. We are listening to jazz and it is raining. Perhaps somewhere someone who is very old right this very minute is wishing they had secured such a room in a library on a weekday and had taken the time to listen to Keith Jarrett. And perhaps they are in some place like Florida because—-let’s face it—-all old people eventually go to Florida, and they are sitting there wishing it was raining in Florida, because I hear it rarely does this time of year.