CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY she was accepted here. She came on an .airplane, direct, she brought with her very little but keeps a woven rug, a few low carved tables, and a lamp or two. She has stayed in Portland because it offers both mountains and ocean, because she can go to school and paint and write and yet not be completely without access to urban pleasures. Although she went back to Paris her first winter break and her mother visited her that next spring, most of her relatives never quite make it to Portland. It is too isolated, it has none of the cosmopolitan reputation of San Francisco (her brother is going to school near there), it is far far beyond the East coast. Zahra will stay here and finish school if her visa is extended for another year. If not, she will have to leave, and her next move will probably be back to Paris. She will stay in Portland if she can: she is within a year of graduating; she has little to look forward to in Paris and thinks it would be difficult to get any kind of a job there, even with citizenship; Portland has been a place she can step back and think, a refuge. She will find out about her visa in the spring. Meanwhile she is looking for a place here in Portland. She cannot say when her family will next be all together under one roof, nor does she know where that roof will be. Misha, maybe twenty-one, came from Germany to spend some time in America. America — rock-and-roll, the Big Apple, California, land and more land in between. While here he hooked up with the Grateful Dead, Summer of ’80 tour. He learned to play pinball. He bought the t-shirt, took the drugs, lived day-for-day the life of the Deadhead, splitting off the tour in Portland to stay with a friend of mine he’d met along the way. Once here he saw the sights and poked around, shooting pool and playing every pinball machine he could find, drinking as much Bohemian and imported beer as any of us. Why had he come to America? Just to see, just to see. All the things you hear about a place you’ve never seen, the desire to see and touch and smell and be there yourself. Watching his savings dwindle, his priorities rapidly focused on a quick trip to Hawaii before he had to hitchhike back east, knowing now how far away New York is. And that’s the last we’ve seen of Misha. Bwah. A word he taught us for a mixture of astonishment and exhaustion, maybe outrage. He left his address and in the same casual and important crossing of paths that allowed my friend and Misha to meet, we might very well see him again. Small and like a bird, darting and then standing still at the side of a conveyor belt chugging luggage endlessly along. She is wearing pale pink and linen white, no makeup, black hair cut very short, holding a string bag of exotic looking breakables. She grabs a woven grass satchel slightly larger than a doctor’s bag the first time it comes around and checks out of the baggage area. She heads toward the windows and glass doors, waiting there after everyone else from her flight is gone. 1 gather my nerve and ask if she has a few minutes to talk. Yolanda Laudico, a citizen of Manila, waiting for a silver Honda of her friends to arrive and whisk her away. She will be visiting Portland for six weeks. No, she has no idea what she will be doing while she is here, the friend she will be staying with will take care of all that, just as she did when he visited Manila. Yolanda travels quite a bit, whenever possible, actually. She works as a curator for the Museum of Phillipine Art, and she travels any time she has the money. Are most of these trips six weeks long? They vary, but you know, you can’t travel for more than six months or so before it’s no fun anymore. After that travel is a way of life, not just visiting. She keeps a house in Manila while she’s away; the maids take care of things while she is gone and the rest of her family lives very near by. She travels out of curiosity, she has traveled since she was a little girl, she chose to work as a curator partly because it would give her the freedom to travel. The people in each place are so different, they have different ways of doing things, and this is refreshing. Now that she travels on her own, Yolanda no longer gathers the souvenirs of the tourist. She laughs as she describes her first big trip by herself, to the United States with an exhibit. She bought so many presents she had to send them home separately, and all the pictures she took are gathering dust at home. Now she brings almost nothing, gathers almost nothing (maybe a pair of shoes); she plans to travel even when she is old, so why gather things when she will be back? What does she expect of Portland? Her friend has told her Portland is very nice, very relaxed, that many people here are on “ nature trips.” She likes the colloquialism and is pleased that she has used it correctly. Her friend has told her everything in Portland is very pleasant, but that the Californians vacation here (they come for the hot springs) and are sometimes annoying. Even as she finishes speaking she is watching for her friends; she asks if there is anything else I need to ask. When I say no, she offers her hand quickly, we shake, and she gathers her bags and steps outside to wait. They are here in passing, visitors. I ask them the same questions I ask myself, having chosen to live in a place other than where I was born and raised. Perhaps Zahra is right, the traveler seeks change at a faster rate than the ones who remain settled and tied to one place, to Portland. Perhaps it is a different kind of change entirely, made up of contrast and juxtaposition, where the nature of the traveler can remain steady while the terrain changes. Why Portland should lie on such a path remains elusive. If it has an overdose of livability it is perhaps because it is a good place to rest, a comfortable place to live day by day, a city small enough to learn the rudiments quickly and then enjoy simply.■ Armand & Dixie 404 SW 10th Portland 224-9028 Catering Specialists Hours Mon.-Fri. 10-9, Sat. 106 FINE WINES & BEER ITALIAN SPECIALTIES MEATS & CHEESES IMPORTED CANDIES PASTRIES FRESH COFFEE 21
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