Displaced in Portland

Glenda took this picture of me soon after we arrived in Oregon. We’d spent two years working in canneries and bars in Alaska, making a whole lot of money that we then went through in about three months.

At the end of it all we came to rest in Portland, where we rented a tiny apartment downtown.

We didn’t stay together long after that. I think we’d tended to be more tolerant of each other’s shortcomings up until then -- first in Seward when we were working long hours and living in a sort of communal arrangement with a small group of people …

… and then traveling around the country seeing friends and having a great time.

The breakup was amiable enough compared to what I’ve experienced in the past, although in the end she did get the dog.

And then less than two years later there I was a guest at her wedding, laughing with her mother and flirting with her sister.

I was fully prepared to dislike her new husband, but we’ve actually become pretty good friends. He even lent me $100 the other day.

And I like Oregon more than any place I’ve ever lived -- not only the mountains and forests but the people I run into in bookstores and bars and on the bus. “Isn’t this interesting?” a complete stranger said to me at the park the other day. “Look at how this ant is holding onto this bit of leaf.”

Anyway, now that Glenda and Robert have a baby we’ll probably drift apart more and more -- there being even less room for an ex-boyfriend around.

Just before she had the child, though, I slept on their couch one evening (after my then-girlfriend locked me out for the night), and Glenda’s face was the first thing I saw when I came to in the morning, hovering over me. She’d come to tell me she was driving Robert to work. And for a moment I felt completely displaced, neither in Alaska nor in Oregon, neither a boyfriend nor an ex-boyfriend, with the dog -- our dog -- curled up right there on the floor.

Perhaps I should go stay with my relatives in Texas for a while.

Certain Eerie, Nervous Feelings

During intermission at a concert the other night I found myself standing just a few feet away from three well-known European cellists. It was noisy in the lobby, but as I concentrated on trying to make out what the three were discussing I realized they were talking about whether to stay for the rest of the concert or go out for burgers.

The experience reminded me of some researchers I interviewed recently about their work in digital speech processing. They’d just developed an algorithm that did a particularly good job of filtering out wind noise and other environmental sounds when people spoke on the phone in the car.

I’ve interviewed a lot of researchers over the years -- physicians and microbiologists and computer scientists and many others. And yet knowing that all these smart people are out there devising all sorts of beneficial things hasn’t diminished the frequency of certain eerie, nervous feelings I have.

Intimations that something horrible is about to happen at any moment.

I’m able to escape these feelings for brief periods when out with friends.

Or for those few moments when I’m struck by something unexpectedly lovely -- like the unaffected way one woman lightly holds another woman’s arm on the street.

Thoughts of people I’ve known can have a similar effect -- especially the recollection of a particular moment we spent together. That instant in line at the art museum, for example, when Roxie glanced to one side.

But just as suddenly I can also be struck by another sort of recollection -- an older kid, say, telling me there’s a poison so deadly that even a quantity the size of a lettuce seed can kill you in a matter of seconds.

Then I feel like a small, vulnerable child wishing someone would let her inside so she could find a cool, dark place to hide.

And then you gently remind me that it’s my turn.