On Route 153, Dreaming of Portland: In Portland, Dreaming of Route 153

It is difficult to live in the moment. Every moment I am doing something is a moment I am not doing something else. Some calmer personalities are able to handle this quite easily, whereas others of us were the kids who never wanted to fall asleep for fear of missing something.

I am working for three clients at the moment. Well, I am working for two—one is getting put off until one of the others is checked off the list. I give the jobs my all, but deciding who gets my attention at what point can cause a little stress. Where does one start when facing equally important piles?

Add to that the need to catch up with the regular bills, etc., that accumulated here during my week in Portland. And my shortened work week in the face of visiting friends. And the need to feed these friends as well as figure out what delightful nosh to provide at another friend’s champagne-and-art party Friday night. Today is Wednesday. Dana and Chris arrive tomorrow. Hmmmm.

But this isn’t simply a matter of triage. Certain things I am not doing in a particular moment will get done in a different moment. It’s those choices one makes to be in one place and not another—in moments one will never get back—that are harder. If I am in Portland, I am with my Portland friends, but I am missing my Route 153 friends and Route 153 happenings and everything that makes me happy that Route 153 is my home. If I am on Route 153, I am missing my friends all over this crazy country, and as I sit at my computer working on some textbook or other, I find myself dreaming of hanging out in their urban, tropical, deserty, mountainous, coastal, or landlocked lives. I miss other crazy countries too, as my mind wanders to a café in Verona or to the cliffs at the northern tip of the Shetland Islands. I remember that green kingfisher in Belize. I get all yearny.

Monday night, a neighbor’s relatives were in town, and I missed a game of kickball that will never come again. I regret that, but meanwhile, Tim prepared a lovely red snapper on the grill, and there’s no rushing that, and it took a bit longer than we’d expected, and then we were quite tired. Still. There are invitations from good friends that we have to turn down because we’ve already accepted invitations from other good friends. There are big events I’ll be missing in August while I’m clinging to my last week at my twenty-two-summers-running vacation spot. Like a spoiled child, even when what I’m getting is great, it hurts to miss anything. I’d throw a tantrum, but I have to get back to work.