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            Like it or not we are all children of our geography. Geography and place is something you don’t hear much about when people speak of our development as humans. You will hear a great deal about families, genetics and maybe a bit about community. You never hear much a city or a region.

            For most of us where we are is just a temporary place in our lives. Maybe that speaks more to who we are as Americans then we would like to admit. We are a nation that is not “on the move” so much as we are a nation “obsessed with moving”. Look at our movies and television, isn’t it always the friend of the hero, the lovable lug who stays behind while the hero moves on. We are convinced that we must move to ascend.

            Gone is the day when someone says I’m doing it here. I’m making my world, my place better. Here are the days when we pack up and move to where ever we perceive the latest temporary opportunity. No doubt staying put may limit some opportunities in our lives but one never knows what opportunities it may open as well. 

            Now I have lived in many places  Seattle Washington, Melbourne Australia and all these places have not changed who I am, but Portland, Portland effects me every day. I know that in some fundamental way I’m bound to this place where I was born. There is some connection that I find difficult to sever even when I’m a great distance away.

            This connection to place is hard to describe to most people. I think those that have given in to the religion of movement may find it difficult, as difficult to understand as I do to explain it. I seldom even try to explain it now days. I know it’s there as sure as I know there is a molten core deep in the earth, even if I can’t touch it or see it, it’s resinance the magnetic north of my life.

            I love Portland not in the egotistical belief that it is in any way perfect, it is not. I love it because I’ve grown with it, changed with it. I love it warts, it’s scars and it’s problems. There is much to be unhappy with about Portland. It’s corruptions and political myopia to name a few but there is much to see and love as well.

            I’m stupefied by the transplants who move here and try to ware Portland as t-shirts with a slogans or a bumper stickers of the Oregon flag with a green heart in the middle, or posters that say Keep Portland Weird, all these things seem so shallow to me. I know these People mean well I’m not faulting those who sport this slogans or stickers. I can’t help but think how little of what those posters, numerous stickers and t-shirts say really represents what has been the enduring core elements of this city

            I feel Portland in my bones, I wake with it, breath it, sleep it, When I work I drive her streets as a bus driver moving my fellow citizens. It pervades my soul and I feel it’s faults and failures, I rejoice in its achievements and firsts and I cry at its pains.

            I don’t feel reduced by the love others have for their places. I, in fact, rejoice in it. I find visiting other places with people who do not have a passion for their home to be boring. I want to hear the history, the love affair of a place, anywhere I go. I could give or take some edifice or structure but tell me of the people and the history and I’m sold.

            Over all I don’t think a place can really effect you, no great city like Paris, Berlin, Tokyo nor all the art and architecture of Italy can really be appreciated unless you have an appreciation for your place. I’m sure many feel the effects of these great locations but to feel them in a penetrating way you must know that deep passion of place that is your base, your home. Without it there is no north and though you may sail the same seas without a compass you will in effect be nothing more then a wanderer through your life.