Oregon, Again

When I was twenty‑three, my girlfriend moved to a small town outside Portland, Oregon called Tigard. I’d never lived outside Georgia. I was a Georgia boy through and through, and heading west felt like stepping off the map. But I didn’t have much going on here (as a matter of fact, things were bad), and the idea of Oregon felt hopeful in a way. My girlfriend’s stepfather bought me an open‑ended plane ticket to visit her, and one summer I packed a bag and flew to the great Northwest. Oregon was—and still is—a different world from Georgia. A young state. I always say I loved the scenery, but the people were another thing entirely. I carry little pieces of Oregon in my memory: steady drizzling rain, sycamore leaves big as dried paper sticking to my rake, big mountains, black sand on the beach, giant rock islands rising out of the ocean, raspberries for sale, logging camps, the sour smell of paper mills, huge ships loaded with Japanese cars, no sales tax, small‑batch beer, firework stands. I could go on all day. Mostly, I remember how the world looked there—and how I felt moving through it. Last night I had a dream about that time. It wasn’t scary or filled with longing. A couple of childhood friends were with me—Daren, who knew my girlfriend and me, and Robby, who I’d gone through twelve years of school with but haven’t seen in years. In the dream, Daren and I were driving to see her. We passed through the towns as I remember them, past the houses and neighborhoods. We pulled up to her home, and I thought, I used to walk through this gate. I hadn’t been through that gate in thirty‑five years. I opened it, and people were sitting around. Not quite a party—just a gathering. I saw her mother, who I had an odd half‑friendly, half‑not relationship with. I saw her grandmother, who has since passed. And I saw “L.” It felt awkward, but my heart wasn’t broken. I was glad to see her. But she wouldn’t talk. I kept trying to get her to say something, but she stayed silent. I couldn’t understand why. At some point, Robby came up and hugged me, like he knew something was wrong and was trying to steady me. I woke up crying with a deep pain in my heart. I must have cried for an hour before I shook it off and went to work. I wasn’t crying because I lost her—maybe a little—but mostly because I felt the passing of all those years hit me at once. Back then, in Oregon, I was young and excited about the world. I believed life held great possibilities. Now I’m sixty, and I don’t see any possibilities, only a slope going downhill. The things that used to make me happy feel out of reach. I don’t feel that life has that positive forward motion anymore. My time in Oregon wasn’t a grand adventure. It was just different. It was me trying something new. I thought I’d never come back to Georgia. I thought she and I would marry and build a life on the West Coast. A year later, I came back home. All these years later, I thought I had made my peace with Oregon. Why did it call me back?