It was the morning after my doctor’s appointment that I decided to wear a tied-dyed shirt that did not belong to me. It belongs to one of my sisters, which one I’m not completely sure, but I did not take it out of my laundry pile that my mom accidentally put it in when I was at home for a few weeks ago. I thought about it, for a moment, and then decided to give into the forces of the universe that had some how directed it to the space between my jeans and underwear, and I placed it in my Portland-bound suitcase. Neither sister would be happy about it. But I guess it’s like taking a little part of them with me as I press forward with this year. A bit of protection. A reminder that there are still reasons to celebrate. And a small hope that the shirt would bring out the best in me, and that in the midst of my nagging patients to go to their appointments, it would make me feel a little more alive.
So from that moment on, the week started to look up a bit. Matthew, former patient that liked to play the flute, brought in assorted cheesecake for the staff. I opened the card to see big, block-like handwriting thanking us for our help when it was so needed. I talked to John about plane tickets to Boston, who hopes to see his family for the first time in ten years sometime this summer. I made some phone calls and faxed some papers. I wiped the dust off my desk and locked my computer screen before coming home.
It’s funny how hard it is to be far away sometimes, most of the time from things I never thought I’d feel far away from. But there is the lack of sun, the long nights in the library writing papers, the protective shell of college, and the way the trees cast shadows on Harding Street on a sunny day. There is my lazy dog, my old college dorm room and the centerpiece on the dining room table (a large bowl of glossy stones). It’s hard to love people from far away and not wish that you were with them, and it’s hard to open yourself up to something very new. New people, new streets, new grocery lists. I’m learning that it’s a process, and probably one that I’ve struggled with before, and will to struggle with after JVC.
We went to the contemplative mass at the Jesuit church in Southeast Portland for our community night. It was dark and quiet, and the choir sang amazing grace and the priest talked about a wedding that he gone to. He said it was beautiful, that the bride changed into out of her gown into a red dress and then into a sweatshirt in jeans. He marveled over the fried turkey, the people, the dancing. He said was love there, and for some reason, he thought it was worth telling everyone about it.
Our community sat in one pew. I felt a great strength in that. That even though this has been hard, that I often find myself unsure of what I am doing and what I will be doing afterwards, it will be okay.
(Written 1/17/10)
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Back in Action
It’s Saturday, 50 degrees and overcast, and I am sitting in MAC house stealing their internet to post an entry that I wrote a few days ago. It’s been a good day so far. There was a bike ride to the southeast for a pancake breakfast in support of a coffee shop that would rather not close its doors to the public so was thinking of several creative ways to make a lot of money in a short amount of time. We ordered our food and browsed the book exchange shelf, (which included “The New Book of Knowledge,” “The Sounds of the Universe,” and a 500 page hard cover novel named “All of My Sins.” I had a feeling that most of the customers, like myself, had not showered that morning, and a handful more of them had not showered the day before. So who knows if the event will save the space closing, but who knows. As the guy making the waffles said on our way out, “from one proactive community to another, thanks for coming out!”
So here is what I wrote earlier, and I will try to make more of a commitment to intentional blogging time in the new year.
(1/5/10)
I just finished drinking a cup of Sage-Blackberry-Herbal-ect-ect-ect tea. It came in a cylinder shaped tin with flowers on it. The label promised wisdom, and I’m sitting on my bed feeling no more wise.
Every time I try to write something for this blog my mind seems to freeze. I type long sentences and worry that I will come to no conclusion, and that the paragraphs will become a scattered pile of crappy and not-very-fun instances, and I will write in circles and convince myself that this year has turned into a tangled web or a rapidly growing patch of weeds. But I guess that’s what the past month and a half has been for me: dry, undesirable grass that I can’t yank out of the ground or trim evenly. The only thing I can think to do is to put away gardening tools, or run away. Neither option I’m satisfied with. So I guess for now I’m just waiting. Collecting what is growing out of this, and trying to give myself space.
I’m not sure that I’ve fully recovered from that first week in November, with the yelling lady in the small car. She was not mentally sound. She had not taken her medication. And I, along with other staff members to follow, took the repercussions of that. Although I knew it was not my fault, that I had done nothing wrong, that I was not the awful thing she told me I was, it still hurt to hear her screaming. It hurt to go home that night and feel angry. It hurt to know that she was beyond our capacity of care. It hurt to insist to my supervisor that she did not fit into the program, that she had threatened our safety we could do nothing for her. My opinion came out very easily, and I still stick to it, but that energy gets to you after a while. Sometimes, people do things that make it hard to have faith in them. So that’s what happened. I lost faith.
For now, it’s wavering. I’m sure there won’t be any happy endings to this story, or many of the stories that fall into my lap as I sit at the front desk. There are good days and there are bad days. But it’s been hard for me to stay completely grounded as the madness of granola bars, medical appointments, medication boxes, and tenants in the Henry building begging for one more butter scotch hard candy. But there are some other stories. Like the Teddy bear that saved Allen’s life, and the fact that people have the opportunity to believe in teddy bears. Or that Isabel is going back to Colorado to be with her mother, and the scabs on Richard’s nose have healed since I’ve been away on vacation. Maybe faith isn’t about finding ways to be happy or excited about life all the time, but to realize there are things worth noticing.
So here is what I wrote earlier, and I will try to make more of a commitment to intentional blogging time in the new year.
(1/5/10)
I just finished drinking a cup of Sage-Blackberry-Herbal-ect-ect-ect tea. It came in a cylinder shaped tin with flowers on it. The label promised wisdom, and I’m sitting on my bed feeling no more wise.
Every time I try to write something for this blog my mind seems to freeze. I type long sentences and worry that I will come to no conclusion, and that the paragraphs will become a scattered pile of crappy and not-very-fun instances, and I will write in circles and convince myself that this year has turned into a tangled web or a rapidly growing patch of weeds. But I guess that’s what the past month and a half has been for me: dry, undesirable grass that I can’t yank out of the ground or trim evenly. The only thing I can think to do is to put away gardening tools, or run away. Neither option I’m satisfied with. So I guess for now I’m just waiting. Collecting what is growing out of this, and trying to give myself space.
I’m not sure that I’ve fully recovered from that first week in November, with the yelling lady in the small car. She was not mentally sound. She had not taken her medication. And I, along with other staff members to follow, took the repercussions of that. Although I knew it was not my fault, that I had done nothing wrong, that I was not the awful thing she told me I was, it still hurt to hear her screaming. It hurt to go home that night and feel angry. It hurt to know that she was beyond our capacity of care. It hurt to insist to my supervisor that she did not fit into the program, that she had threatened our safety we could do nothing for her. My opinion came out very easily, and I still stick to it, but that energy gets to you after a while. Sometimes, people do things that make it hard to have faith in them. So that’s what happened. I lost faith.
For now, it’s wavering. I’m sure there won’t be any happy endings to this story, or many of the stories that fall into my lap as I sit at the front desk. There are good days and there are bad days. But it’s been hard for me to stay completely grounded as the madness of granola bars, medical appointments, medication boxes, and tenants in the Henry building begging for one more butter scotch hard candy. But there are some other stories. Like the Teddy bear that saved Allen’s life, and the fact that people have the opportunity to believe in teddy bears. Or that Isabel is going back to Colorado to be with her mother, and the scabs on Richard’s nose have healed since I’ve been away on vacation. Maybe faith isn’t about finding ways to be happy or excited about life all the time, but to realize there are things worth noticing.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Waiting Rooms.
I met a woman at a party on Sunday who wore a green sweater and a green scarf. She had long, wavy hair. We were at a “naked lady party” which isn’t quite as kinky as it sounds but not a sort of party I’d heard about before Portland. Everyone heard from a friend of a friend and brought a bag of clothes they did not want anymore, and realized, upon arrival, that they knew hardly anyone else there. So here we were, in a situation that has become all too familiar since this whole thing started (gatherings with lots of strangers) trying on each other’s clothes. Creating new piles and then bringing them home without any expectation of seeing the former wearer again.
But back to the woman in the sweater. She, by the way, brought the best clothes. The most clothes. A large variety of J Crew sweaters. She did not hold a glass of red wine in her hand, because she is now expecting. (Which she found out a month ago, and is just now feeling the sicknesses from it.) But even though her stomach revealed nothing I could see the joy in the way she talked about it. The need to find a midwife. The bathtub her husband built in the attic for the birth. Family names. Maternity clothes. The excitement of a new life that she will have so much to do with. It was refreshing, and strange, to hear so immersed in thought about a subject that has hardly crossed my mind.
But the week went on afterwards. I made my morning rounds and called 911 after opening the door on the seventh floor. No, I could not see sharp objects, I told the man on the other end of the line, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t any. I printed off the patient’s information and handed it to the paramedics, my hands still shaking a bit when the papers transferred from my hold to theirs’. I watched them go up the elevator in their blue uniforms and then went back to the office, grabbed the basket of granola bars, and knocked on the rest of the doors. I labeled more post-its for patient appointments and stuck them to the large white board we have in the office.
Later on that day, I stopped at the food court Providence Hospital while waiting for another client to get out of his appointment. I ate the apple I’d brought from home and looked around at the people eating French fries and drinking diet soda through straws. There was a gift shop on the right and soft rock playing in the background. It reminded me of when my mom would take me to Children’s hospital in Boston for the check up on bone cyst on my index finger, or when my Dad and I stopped at Finagle a Bagel on the way back from getting the mole on my head removed. I must have known then that all of that was love—the hours my parents took out of their day, the choice junk food item, the drive through the city, the hour or two of school I missed. But now I know for sure. Maybe that’s one of the most beautiful things they did for me, buying me a bagel with cream cheese when I wasn’t sure what the mole meant, or sitting beside me in a waiting room of strangers. I guess that’s how I ended up here. I had someone to knock on my in the morning, drive me to my appointments. And someone to call the right person if things were to go wrong.
(Written 11/24/2009)
But back to the woman in the sweater. She, by the way, brought the best clothes. The most clothes. A large variety of J Crew sweaters. She did not hold a glass of red wine in her hand, because she is now expecting. (Which she found out a month ago, and is just now feeling the sicknesses from it.) But even though her stomach revealed nothing I could see the joy in the way she talked about it. The need to find a midwife. The bathtub her husband built in the attic for the birth. Family names. Maternity clothes. The excitement of a new life that she will have so much to do with. It was refreshing, and strange, to hear so immersed in thought about a subject that has hardly crossed my mind.
But the week went on afterwards. I made my morning rounds and called 911 after opening the door on the seventh floor. No, I could not see sharp objects, I told the man on the other end of the line, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t any. I printed off the patient’s information and handed it to the paramedics, my hands still shaking a bit when the papers transferred from my hold to theirs’. I watched them go up the elevator in their blue uniforms and then went back to the office, grabbed the basket of granola bars, and knocked on the rest of the doors. I labeled more post-its for patient appointments and stuck them to the large white board we have in the office.
Later on that day, I stopped at the food court Providence Hospital while waiting for another client to get out of his appointment. I ate the apple I’d brought from home and looked around at the people eating French fries and drinking diet soda through straws. There was a gift shop on the right and soft rock playing in the background. It reminded me of when my mom would take me to Children’s hospital in Boston for the check up on bone cyst on my index finger, or when my Dad and I stopped at Finagle a Bagel on the way back from getting the mole on my head removed. I must have known then that all of that was love—the hours my parents took out of their day, the choice junk food item, the drive through the city, the hour or two of school I missed. But now I know for sure. Maybe that’s one of the most beautiful things they did for me, buying me a bagel with cream cheese when I wasn’t sure what the mole meant, or sitting beside me in a waiting room of strangers. I guess that’s how I ended up here. I had someone to knock on my in the morning, drive me to my appointments. And someone to call the right person if things were to go wrong.
(Written 11/24/2009)
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Mom's recommendation: a fat glass of wine.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.
-Hafiz
I think I have the potential to become a little bit obsessed with Hafiz. I'm discovering things about him now, or trying to, in the 20 minutes I have left to be in this coffeeshop before I walk home for dinner. It's raining out, and a guy just opened the door and asked if he could bring his bike in. The barista said yes, of course, "you don't want to bike in that." The biker hoisted the handle bars upward, and brought the wheel over the lone step. "I do, actually. But I'm meeting someone."
But Hafiz. I think, he is persian, or that's what this website says that I am looking at. The person who constructed the page says he is mystical. And beautiful. And from the 7 minutes I spent reading it, I would have to agree. It was Robert, a JV from Seattle, who visited our house last weekend, who first introduced me, as he sat at our kitchen table reading quotes from his anthology while the rest of us did dishes or ate the contents of our cabinents. So now, I'm happy to have his words in my life.
Today was a hard day. One of those frightening days that leaves you incredibly angry at a person for treating you like crap, no matter how ill they are, and then hopeless. How can you do anything in the midst of aggression? You can't, really. You can take a deep breath until your eyes fill with tears and you're directed to one of a small room in the back of the clinic where people who have been doing this a lot longer of you give you a small cup of water, and a hug, and tell you that it will all be okay.
So that was my first day back from the first JVC cascade region retreat. Which was beautiful, at a place where I could look out at the water and see tall trees stretching for miles. We ate lots of beans and fiber, talked about our personality types, and took fewer showers. It was good to get away for a few days. To be surrounded by flannel. To step back and remind myself there is still a lot to see when it's raining.
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.
-Hafiz
I think I have the potential to become a little bit obsessed with Hafiz. I'm discovering things about him now, or trying to, in the 20 minutes I have left to be in this coffeeshop before I walk home for dinner. It's raining out, and a guy just opened the door and asked if he could bring his bike in. The barista said yes, of course, "you don't want to bike in that." The biker hoisted the handle bars upward, and brought the wheel over the lone step. "I do, actually. But I'm meeting someone."
But Hafiz. I think, he is persian, or that's what this website says that I am looking at. The person who constructed the page says he is mystical. And beautiful. And from the 7 minutes I spent reading it, I would have to agree. It was Robert, a JV from Seattle, who visited our house last weekend, who first introduced me, as he sat at our kitchen table reading quotes from his anthology while the rest of us did dishes or ate the contents of our cabinents. So now, I'm happy to have his words in my life.
Today was a hard day. One of those frightening days that leaves you incredibly angry at a person for treating you like crap, no matter how ill they are, and then hopeless. How can you do anything in the midst of aggression? You can't, really. You can take a deep breath until your eyes fill with tears and you're directed to one of a small room in the back of the clinic where people who have been doing this a lot longer of you give you a small cup of water, and a hug, and tell you that it will all be okay.
So that was my first day back from the first JVC cascade region retreat. Which was beautiful, at a place where I could look out at the water and see tall trees stretching for miles. We ate lots of beans and fiber, talked about our personality types, and took fewer showers. It was good to get away for a few days. To be surrounded by flannel. To step back and remind myself there is still a lot to see when it's raining.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Scapegoats
First, I will blame the Internet connection in this apartment. And then laziness. And then indecisiveness. And then I will go ahead and post after a bit of a hiatus.
Everything has been moving along as it should as October comes to a close. It's been a good, razor-less month.There were leaves that turned from green to many other colors. The introduction of cold weather, and the introduction of my spiffy Recuperative Care Program winter jacket. Patients coming and going. New flooring. A filing rack. More rhyming words of wisdom from the man who sits in his wheelchair outside of our building. The intentional purchasing of bike supplies. A long wait for a bus that never came, followed by a whiney phone call to Morris house, requesting a ride home. Several examples of how wonderful it is to be brought out of crankiness, and how that can happen in so many ways.
I tried to post this on Sunday, and I failed, so I will post it now:
I woke up this morning wanting a pumpkin. Not just a pumpkin, but the experience of getting a pumpkin--the mud, the farm, the hot chocolate, my inability to wear socks that are warm enough. It's fall, and the leaves are beginning to fall in heaps on the sidewalk. I love this time of the year, the peak of the season, the last hurrah of beauty and color before the bare (or maybe this time rainy) winter rolls in. And as the leaves fall I've felt more and more pressure to take action--to hike around, take a hay ride, claim a pumpkin. And as the weeks go on, I find myself accomplishing none of these tasks. No hiking. No camping. No cider. No large cow standing behind the barb wired fence, or the tour guide that isn't at all disgusted with the smell of manure. Just me, and my hopes, and my inability to make them happen.
Today, I had it. The determination, the bus route, an enthusiastic housemate to accompany me on the quest. We took off around 1:30 without having to wait very long for trimet. And when we made it downtown I knew exactly how to get to the connecting stop. The bus came, the driver opened the door, and when I asked if the bus would take us to Sauvie Island, he said no, no bus would be going there today. He shut the door. We let go of our smiles as the reality sunk in. No pumpkins.
So instead went to the only other place that we know exactly how to get to by bus: Mt. Tabor. We arrived, to a lot of stairs, that we'd conveniently forgot existed. We climbed. It was damp out by then, but a pleasant dampness, and a thin steak of clouds and a sliver of yellow light above the city. I realized, once again, how much I love the sky here. How colorful it is, even at 2:30 in the afternoon. For the first time all weekend, I felt present to the place I was in, the conversation, the people walking their dogs near by.
(And that's all. Going to sleep. Happy Halloween.)
Everything has been moving along as it should as October comes to a close. It's been a good, razor-less month.There were leaves that turned from green to many other colors. The introduction of cold weather, and the introduction of my spiffy Recuperative Care Program winter jacket. Patients coming and going. New flooring. A filing rack. More rhyming words of wisdom from the man who sits in his wheelchair outside of our building. The intentional purchasing of bike supplies. A long wait for a bus that never came, followed by a whiney phone call to Morris house, requesting a ride home. Several examples of how wonderful it is to be brought out of crankiness, and how that can happen in so many ways.
I tried to post this on Sunday, and I failed, so I will post it now:
I woke up this morning wanting a pumpkin. Not just a pumpkin, but the experience of getting a pumpkin--the mud, the farm, the hot chocolate, my inability to wear socks that are warm enough. It's fall, and the leaves are beginning to fall in heaps on the sidewalk. I love this time of the year, the peak of the season, the last hurrah of beauty and color before the bare (or maybe this time rainy) winter rolls in. And as the leaves fall I've felt more and more pressure to take action--to hike around, take a hay ride, claim a pumpkin. And as the weeks go on, I find myself accomplishing none of these tasks. No hiking. No camping. No cider. No large cow standing behind the barb wired fence, or the tour guide that isn't at all disgusted with the smell of manure. Just me, and my hopes, and my inability to make them happen.
Today, I had it. The determination, the bus route, an enthusiastic housemate to accompany me on the quest. We took off around 1:30 without having to wait very long for trimet. And when we made it downtown I knew exactly how to get to the connecting stop. The bus came, the driver opened the door, and when I asked if the bus would take us to Sauvie Island, he said no, no bus would be going there today. He shut the door. We let go of our smiles as the reality sunk in. No pumpkins.
So instead went to the only other place that we know exactly how to get to by bus: Mt. Tabor. We arrived, to a lot of stairs, that we'd conveniently forgot existed. We climbed. It was damp out by then, but a pleasant dampness, and a thin steak of clouds and a sliver of yellow light above the city. I realized, once again, how much I love the sky here. How colorful it is, even at 2:30 in the afternoon. For the first time all weekend, I felt present to the place I was in, the conversation, the people walking their dogs near by.
(And that's all. Going to sleep. Happy Halloween.)
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Pictures
"You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."
Mary Oliver
I'm not a photographer. But I've taken my camera out occasionally, because I have it so I may as well use it, and store images on my computer, just to have. When I'm in a new place or had a bit to drink. To print out and slide under plastic pages of a decorated photo album.
So this one is from Seattle, where we went more than a month ago and stayed with Leslie Phillip's parents in the house she grew up in. The first morning we took a walk around her neighborhood, next to Lake Washington, without a clear destination or goal except to get some air. It was lovely, even in the haze, and when we turned around to go home I saw these geese. There were lots of them, perched along the grass. They were attentive. And I guess, for some reason, I wanted to remember them.
There are a lot of books in our house. Mostly about social justice, written my nuns and Jesuits about their experiences in small villages in central America. Jonathan Kozol's Ordinary Resurrections, Edward Hays's Prayers for the Domestic Church. All good. All pertinent. All very wise. And all things that I'm not very motivated to read on a Sunday late morning while curled up on the couch.
But in my room, I found an anthology called Earth Prayers. There are poems about loving the ground, praising large turtles, escaping your ego while in the forest. And then, there is a poem about Geese, by Mary Oliver. Which I have read everyday since I've discovered it. And has brought me back to the moment in Seattle, as I observed the consolidated force, before going on my way with my new pack of people.
There is something motivating in her words, that gave me small reassurance of what it is to be an individual while living in community, to keep your own self and your own needs, and be at peace with the fact that they will be different from others. I guess it's possible to act together, to create a life for a year in a random house in the middle of northeast Portland, and a little harder to claim exactly what that should look like.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Lunch breaks.
I've been slacking a bit with this blog. Which only makes me want to slack more... and be more indecisive about exactly what I want write about.
I decided to go to lunch early yesterday, before serving the leftovers from the elementary school to the patients. It was Friday, and Nic (my supervisor) was out of the office and like most days, around 11:30, I decided I needed a break. From the front desk, the beeping fax machine, the drives around the block in the red van to pick up patients. So I zipped my backpack and filled my water bottle and headed to Pioneer Square. Have I talked about the square yet? Across from the courthouse? The bricks, the water fountain, the Starbucks without a bathroom? The canvassers for international children's foundations lurking on every corner, who I politely (and somewhat self righteously) inform that I am already volunteering and only making $80 a month so will not be able to contribute financially, but approve and support of their cause? Pioneer square is 4 or so blocks south from where I work, that resembles a small brick stadium with nothing organized to look at. But most days, there are surprises--people spreading the word of Jesus to the disinterested crowd of professional twenty somethings eating their chinese noodles from environmentally friendly to-go boxes, a sun burnt man strumming on his guitar, field trips of third graders trading their potato chips, and festivals covering every heritage and every cause. I guess what I like about all of it is that I don't have to participate in any of the festivities. Friday was domestic abuse awareness week. There were fliers, and free coffee, and extra doughnuts. And I could be in another world without anyone asking for me.
This is what I like about being in a city, and what I like about working in the downtown area, that there is always something else going on. No matter how much I feel like I'm losing control of my responsibilities, how late I am to appointments, how frustrated I am with clients, or how frustrated they are with me--everything around us keeps going. The max rolls in and out, people sit on the brick steps eating their burritos, the fountain keeps running. It's a reminder, or an invitation to keep yourself open when you feel like everything is closing in on you.
So it was a good hour. Which may have had something to do with the free coffee, the surprise doughnut, the fact that Danielle (a JV living in MAC, the other Portland house) happened to be hanging out there in the late morning as well. We sat under the glass roof beside Starbucks. We did not take off our hoods. And I realized that there may be no such thing as perfect.
I decided to go to lunch early yesterday, before serving the leftovers from the elementary school to the patients. It was Friday, and Nic (my supervisor) was out of the office and like most days, around 11:30, I decided I needed a break. From the front desk, the beeping fax machine, the drives around the block in the red van to pick up patients. So I zipped my backpack and filled my water bottle and headed to Pioneer Square. Have I talked about the square yet? Across from the courthouse? The bricks, the water fountain, the Starbucks without a bathroom? The canvassers for international children's foundations lurking on every corner, who I politely (and somewhat self righteously) inform that I am already volunteering and only making $80 a month so will not be able to contribute financially, but approve and support of their cause? Pioneer square is 4 or so blocks south from where I work, that resembles a small brick stadium with nothing organized to look at. But most days, there are surprises--people spreading the word of Jesus to the disinterested crowd of professional twenty somethings eating their chinese noodles from environmentally friendly to-go boxes, a sun burnt man strumming on his guitar, field trips of third graders trading their potato chips, and festivals covering every heritage and every cause. I guess what I like about all of it is that I don't have to participate in any of the festivities. Friday was domestic abuse awareness week. There were fliers, and free coffee, and extra doughnuts. And I could be in another world without anyone asking for me.
This is what I like about being in a city, and what I like about working in the downtown area, that there is always something else going on. No matter how much I feel like I'm losing control of my responsibilities, how late I am to appointments, how frustrated I am with clients, or how frustrated they are with me--everything around us keeps going. The max rolls in and out, people sit on the brick steps eating their burritos, the fountain keeps running. It's a reminder, or an invitation to keep yourself open when you feel like everything is closing in on you.
So it was a good hour. Which may have had something to do with the free coffee, the surprise doughnut, the fact that Danielle (a JV living in MAC, the other Portland house) happened to be hanging out there in the late morning as well. We sat under the glass roof beside Starbucks. We did not take off our hoods. And I realized that there may be no such thing as perfect.
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