Portland, January 2006

You will never guess what we saw today….THE SUN!!! It’s amazing how much a Georgia boy can miss the sun even after just a few days of gray and drizzle. And you know it’s bad when someone from Oregon tells you it’s the worst week of rain they’ve seen in 4 ½ years. Ouch. But today the sun came out and stayed out. It was an epic battle in the skies between the clouds and sun, but the star won out and it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Still chilly and very breezy, but bright and sunny, blue skies and brilliant greens everywhere. Gave quite the nice impression of Portland. So, so nice. And we spent virtually all of it outside walking.

We got to Portland late last night after a friendly hand off in Olympia outside The Lemon Grass, a delicious Thai restaurant in the sleepy capital of Washington. Olympia is a very convenient place basically half way between Seattle and Portland. Christy (Leigh’s Seattle friend) and Deb (Leigh’s Portland friend) were with Leigh during her year long stay in Nepal back in 1997, so it was quite the reunion between them all, if only for a few minutes.

Deb is such an amazing woman. She is basically single-handedly running an international NGO called the Pangaea Project (www.thepangaeaproject.org). The mission of Pangaea is “By engaging teenagers from underserved neighborhoods in local and international service-learning projects, The Pangaea Project promotes the development of leadership skills, increases global awareness, and fosters a commitment to work towards social change, profoundly transforming both the participants and their communities.” As I understand it, the Project recruits 15-20 middle school to high school students from a couple local schools to participate. Once selected, the kids are educated on several global issues, such as oil, deforestation, the global market, etc. Then at the end of a 6-8 week education process, the kids go on a trip to Ecuador for 4 weeks. There they stay with host families, meet communities directly impacted by the issues they have just learned about, and they take on a community development project working with the local people to help make it a better place. Like a very short Peace Corps but with a cross cultural community development mission. She only started it a little over a two years ago, but already it is taking off….The Everyone Orchestra (members of Phish, String Cheese, Jazz Mandolin Project, Spearhead and many other very talented and well know musicians) puts on a fundraiser every year, the community of Portland (and yes, it is really still that small feeling to call a major city a community) is totally behind the Project and Deb, and her 1^st newsletter mailing has already exceeded their expectations by thousands of dollars! It is absolutely so inspiring to see someone, much less a friend, take an idea, turn it into reality, and gain the enthusiastic support of her community, and then start changing the world. Simply amazing. Thinking globally, acting locally. That’s it right there. That’s all any of us need to do – Think Global, Act Local.

I’ve only met a couple of Deb’s friends and heard about a couple more and though I’m traveling to Tibet and starting my own photography business, I feel like a slack ass extraordinaire compared to Deb & them! It makes me wonder what this world would be like if we all met our full potential. Yes, I said the P word. Potential. The one word I heard again and again growing up….in school, in sports, that word was my nemesis. Let’s face it; it is easy to be lazy; it is easy to stay ignorant; it is easy to maintain the status quo. Yet there came a time in my life when I realized that there are certain doors, certain actions, certain levels of awareness that once opened, once committed, could never be closed. Once the faucet of realization has been turned on, it is nearly impossible to turn it off. Not that I ever would turn it off. I couldn’t imagine my life now without this growing compassion, spiritual awareness and social dedication. I don’t know when it stopped being a dirty word to me, but I now look at Potential as a goal or something to strive for and no longer something to be scared of or overwhelmed by. In fact, I’m beginning to think that this time, this life we experience here on Earth is only a small part of the evolutionary journey toward our true Potential. Maybe it manifests as vibrating as pure energy, maybe discovering Paradise is locked within, maybe the prison of Reality slowly erodes along with the false Fear of separation. Maybe my potential is what your potential needs.

May I be my dreams…may I be your dreams…may I be my idealism…may I be your idealism…may I be my Potential.

This is one reason why I am so excited and anxious at the same time about this trip. This journey represents the ultimate opportunity to both expand and possible meet my full potential, at least on a few different levels (specifically as an artist, photographer, story-teller, husband and global citizen). This is such an incredible opportunity to really see what I can do. No longer bound by ‘working hours’ of 9 to 5, no longer restricted to the 2 or 3 trips a year outside my box, no longer do I report to anyone else but myself. I can tackle the stories I find gripping. I am fully open to explore the photograph my heart and eye compel me to make. There are no line to color outside of….I am making the drawing as I go along! This also means there are no limits, no boundaries, no rules (except maybe those imposed by the Chinese authorities), and no guidebook. I know I will get lost. I know I will stumble. But I am so ecstatically happy to really see what I can do without anyone or anything holding me back.

Today was a great, great Portland day. We took advantage of the sun and blue skies to walk around and visit several neighborhoods and one really nice city park. (For those of you who give me shit about ‘knowing everyone in Athens and Atlanta’, you will appreciate this: I kid you not, but every single place we went, be it a store, a restaurant, a coffee shop, or even the park, Deb knew at least someone if not more than one someone! It brought a smile to my face thinking that Deb could be Portland’s me). We began the day with a delicious breakfast at the Tin Shed (for those of you familiar with the area) and then a nice leisurely stroll down her neighborhood’s main drag. Full of galleries, co-ops, coffees shops, cute boutiques, artists, hippies, punks and your everyday weirdoes, it reminded me of Little 5 Points in Atlanta but 15 years ago. It is a neighborhood in transition as the urban pioneers move in and begin rejuvenating the area.

Whereas Seattle is a large city of corporations, high rise buildings, interstates and suburbs; Portland is a large group of neighborhoods bunched together in four quadrants (NW, SW, NE, SE) around a fairly small downtown. Whereas Seattle reminds me a lot of Atlanta, Portland reminds me of Athens and Boulder combined. In other words, my kind of town!

After breakfast, we took off to Mount Taber Park, an extinct volcano right on the outskirts of town. There were beautiful views of Portland and the surrounding hills from the top. And then the rain returned and we stopped in at the local used bookstore, Powell’s, for a cup of coffee, some chat time and a few lazy moments of book perusal. When the clouds broke again an hour or so later, it was time for Leigh and Deb to go for their acupuncture appointment, which left me hanging at the house catching up on some nice quiet time writing and photo editing.

Long ago I realized that to be happy and content, I need some good alone time everyday. I really cherish my time alone. I love my wife, I love my friends and I love to meet new people, but I use my time alone to recharge my batteries by being quiet, listening to music, dancing, doing yoga, reading a book, etc. It’s good for the spirit, being alone, being quiet. Without the recharge, I would not have nearly as much of myself to give out.