Just got back to Philly about half an hour ago. The wonderful Seth picked me up at the airport and waited while I filed a claim for my missing bag (left Portland with two, arrived in Philly with one, the math doesn’t add up). Hopefully the bag will show up tomorrow.

I’m totally awake and experiencing that weird perception moment that happens when you walk back into a very familiar space after awhile away. It’s home and yet it feels slightly different. But that’s already being to fade.

It was a great trip. Portland is paradise.

Whenever I come to Portland, I make sure that my stay includes a Monday. This is because when my mom turned 55 three years ago, the only good thing (by her own admission) about becoming a senior citizen, was the 40% discount it entitled her to at Value Village on Mondays.

One summer, years ago, we were at another much beloved thrifting warehouse (Bargain Station, torn down four years ago to make room for an super Wal-Mart) on a Wednesday, which happened to be their senior day. My mom was in her forties at the time, nowhere near the required age for the discount. We were buying quite a bit that day, and so she asked an older woman to pretend that she was our grandma and go through the checkout with us, so that we could buy our goods at the discounted price. This woman, who looked like she was native american (I can’t believe we fooled anyone, my sister and I both have blonde hair and blue eyes) was a born thespian and took on her new role with her all. She joked with us and played with our braids and at one point reprimanded my sister for picking a china cup and saucer that was on display. Once through the check stand and out at the car, my mom thanked her repeatedly and tried to get her to accept $5 (only a portion of what we saved) for her time. She refused the money, thanked us for the fun and went on her way. We always hoped to see her again at Bargain Station, but we never did.

So, while this entire trip has been slightly thrift store focused, today was the big enchilada, the main event of the thrifting rodeo. We went in, primed for bargains and we found many. There is something about finding treasure (in this case linen DKNY pants) in rows of acrylic and tacky that is deeply satisfying. It may be warped, but hey, it’s fun.

There is a thrift store, just down Sandy Blvd. from my parents’ house, called the Teen Challenge. It is a international program to help young adults deal with issues of substance abuse. A good cause, but not why we go there.

There are occasionally phenomenal deals to be had at Teen Challenge, because often they just don’t know what they have. We (my mom and I) stopped there today, on our way to the very large, very wonderful, very expensive Goodwill. Think of it as an opening act for the much awaited headlining band. The selection was kind of sparse, but I stumbled across a very cool old coat rack (okay, I know it sounds weird, but really, it’s a great coat rack) for $5.95. So what if it’s just going to sit in my parent’s garage until I:

a. Move back to Portland

b. Decide I’m staying in Philly and rent a trunk to drive all the stuff I have in Portland across the country

c. Let my sister sell it (cause she’s always selling stuff)

The best deal of the day was the very soft, very gorgeous leather Fossil bag I found hanging between the business logo giveaway lunch bags and the naugahyde pocketbooks. It didn’t have a price tag, but when I asked the guy at the counter, he took at look and said, “$1.95.” I said, “I can do that” while internally gleeful at the bargain.

A nice pair of Diesel sneakers drifted my way at Goodwill, although initially I could only find one. I had to send my mom in to find the mate, because, isn’t that what moms are for? Finding missing mates to shoes, socks, gloves and the like?

So yeah, that was my day. God, I love vacation. We really should do this more often.

I finally made it to Portland, landed at 11:52 am and I have never been so grateful to get off an airplane. My mom came and found me in the baggage claim, and we both giggled and cried at seeing each other after seven months of distance. On getting home, I took a shower, ate a big salad made mostly of ingredients from my parents’ garden and went blueberry picking on Sauvie Island with my mom. Standing in the gentle Oregon light, the breeze gently rattling the branches of the bushes, eating sun-warmed raspberries and blueberries, it became hard to remember why I ever left.

As I write this, I am stuck on an airplane full of Southerners that is parked in a FedEx cargo hold in a remote part of the airport in Greenville, NC. My flight to Portland is leaving from Atlanta, which is 80 miles east from where I sit. To put it mildly, I don’t want to be here. In addition to the general inconvenience, the crying babies and my desire to get to Portland, I’m also made uncomfortable by the presence of all the southern accents. I don’t know what it is exactly, but these days I feel a palpable distaste and scorn for all things southern. I know that it is a sweeping generalization, but I equate Southerners with George W. Bush’s presidential victories, aggressively righteous Christians and Wal-Mart.

**I just overheard a woman state to her group of co-workers, “I drive church vans!”
Christian stereotype confirmed!

This is the first time since I was 7 years old and a thunderstorm delayed our (my mom, my sister and I) flight from Philly back to LA, that I have had flight difficulties. On my return from Indonesia four years ago, I was bumped from the final connecting flight of my journey, which bugged the shit out of me, but didn’t delay me too much. Those flights ran every hour, so I was able to get on the next one.
I don’t see getting to Portland tonight to be in my future.

There is a little boy, probably 2 ½ or so, dressed in baseball uniform pajamas who has made two trips up and down the isle, with his father in tow. He is adorable and is grinning delightedly at all the people who are smiling at him in appreciation of his unabashed innocence. The only one who is untouched by his beatific gaze is the baby wailing with discomfort in the last row of the plane.

My best flight ever was one from Chicago to Philadelphia, in the late summer of 2001, but I didn’t know that it was my best flight until a year ago. I sat next to a woman and her daughter, and we chatted from take off until landing. I had been in Indonesia earlier in that summer for the Subud World Congress and was left extra open to conversations that were able to go deep, wide and spiritual. We talked openly about looking for community and feeling of connectedness. I told her about growing up Unitarian Universalist and how it had given me the ability to look at world religions with an accepting and open attitude (despite opinions voiced in the above paragraph). That I had been taught that the most important thing was to ask questions, think critically and make a choice based on something greater than rote knowledge. I then told her about Subud, and it’s ability to give one a sense of spirit within your body. She told me about her childhood as a fundamentalist and the understanding she had come to as a teenager that it wasn’t the path for her. Her exploration of yoga and her desire to find a welcoming community for her daughter. When the flight landed, we parted warmly, and I gave her my contact information, just for kicks. Last spring she called me. To tell me that she had started going to a Unitarian church in Chicago. To tell me that meeting me on that airplane had changed her life. That doesn’t happen much in life. You don’t normally hear back from the people upon whom we make an impression. Having her call me confirmed my feeling that it all isn’t random, that there is some order and importance to the people who drift in and out of our lives.

I spent last night in the airport. I could have gotten a hotel room at a discount rate, but that option didn’t materialize until 1 am, and at that point they had me booked on a 8 am flight, and it didn’t really make sense to leave, only to return six hours later. I’m now on at 9:44 am direct flight to Portland and I’m really regretting that I didn’t take that hotel room. I slept about three hours on the floor of terminal B, sleeping for 40 minutes and then waking from the noise or the temperature or the numbing of limbs. At this point I’m really looking forward to getting on an airplane, because it’s got to be more comfortable than my last eight hours on the floor.

For some reason my head hasn’t been in the blogging game for the last couple of days. I’ve done a lot, gone to Live 8, hosted a brunch potluck, had a date, fought with my father briefly and celebrated the 4th of July with a crew of great people. And now I’m heading to Portland tomorrow to visit my parents.

It almost feels like the more living I do lately, the less I have the energy to write about it. With so many interesting experiences coming my way, it also becomes harder to identify the one thing to write about. I’ve been self-censoring too, feeling like the little things that flit through my head aren’t worth a post.

So that’s where I’m at. Hopefully I’ll be able to shake this off soon and be back to my regular self.

So my date on Wednesday and the resultant funk I experienced afterwards had sent me down the path of interior exploration and examination. Yet again.

First of all I realized that what this guy said to me has nothing to do with me. That it wasn’t personal. That I wasn’t being minimized for the perspective with which I approach the world. That it’s his stuff, not mine and while I wish him the best in dealing with that stuff, I shouldn’t, in any way, take it on me.

The next thing I came to realize is that I’m approaching this whole dating thing with the wrong attitude. I feel very impatient about the process. I want to meet my person and be done with it. When I meet someone new, inside I’m all antsy, thinking, “is this the right person, I want them to be the right person.” Then when they aren’t, I get pissed off at the universe, mostly because it hasn’t brought the right person my way yet. This impatience is keeping me from living my life as fully in the present as I could be.

The last thing I realized is that I need to throw this whole check list that resides in my head out the window. By having some expectation of who this person should be, I’m limiting the universe’s ability to bring me the very best partner for my life.

So basically, I’m being reminded of the lesson that’s come my way more than once.

Calm the fuck down and enjoy life, just as it comes.