That Bend in the Road...

Our love affair began on May 20, 1992 as I sped north from Portland. I had dreamed of you for nearly a year before, set a path in motion that I wouldn’t deviate from. The long drive up from San Diego with $75 in my pocket for gas and about $200 to my name in the bank and a whole lot of homemade food for the journey. Exhilarated and terrified, spent a week in San Francisco with Jonathan, both of us broke, broke, broke, then moved on to Portland for 3 days, where they confiscated my credit card at the hotel and I had to pay by check – spent half of that $200 on 2 nights in a hotel until I finally got hold of Matt (no cell phones in those days) and spent the final night at his place before heading north as the sun set, north to YOU.
 
I remember the miles between us falling away in my rear-view mirror and the sun-kissed rain forest on both sides of I-5. My mind was going in anxious circles – would you welcome me? Would I be okay? I was moving towards you pretty much sight unseen: would we be compatible?
 
Sometime after Tacoma, I passed that bend in the road, a bend I know well now, after decades. I saw you, for the first time, awaiting my arrival. I saw you, and a calm came over me. The anxiety and fear gone, and only the one feeling remained: I was home. I had finally reached you, my beautiful, mythical Emerald City, and you embraced me at once with open arms and took me in.
 
We separated once, a long, drawn-out separation. I didn’t want to leave you, but my heart’s desire lay elsewhere. It tore my heart in two as I sped away on I-90, not knowing where the future would take me, but once again, speeding along an interstate, exhilarated and terrified. I didn’t know if I’d find my way back to you again.
 
But somehow, 3 years later, I did, this time at 30,000 feet – I had to resist kissing the ground, and opened my mouth to taste your air, so very different, so very life-giving compared to that of Baltimore. The grounding factors of mountain, sea and fire in your topography have always put my soul aright. 
 
We were together again, and, though we’ve had our issues, you’ve been the one constant in my life. I grew up here with you. I’ve become here I am, my footprints all over every inch of you, your streets, your hills, your shores. You are a part of me, my rainy beautiful one, and our love is pure.