Portland.

It is less than a week since I returned from a long weekend in Portland, Oregon, USA.

In the last fourteen months I have been to:
England, the place of my birth and where my family lives,
suburban Houston, where I live with my wife,
Western Ireland, which is like a spiritual home for my music and dreams,
Portland, OR, where most of my friends live and the city in which I have spent the most time.

I have discussed the concept of home before, and my difficulties with the concept, and possibly that creating a home for myself might be the next stage in my life. Portland was as close to being home as staying in the house of my parents. It was just comfortable, easy, familiar, and nostalgic. I had a wonderful time.

One of the most pleasing things about it was the warmth and affection of the friends with whom we spent time. Several people going out of their way to meet with Christina and I, find out about our lives, and feel pleasure in our company. When you have spent time in a place without friends you start to wonder whether you are someone that people might want to be friends with, whether the problem is yourself. Well, there are warm, loving, smart, fun people who want to be friends with me and that is great.

The most surprising thing about Portland for me was the state of the city. I live in just about the only metropolis in the USA that is economically undamaged by the recession. House prices and employment are about the same here as before the Great Catastrophe. Portland, by all accounts, has been hit harder than most places, with unemployment at over 10%, service shortfalls, and real problems in raising enough taxes to keep things going. I was expecting closed businesses, a general malaise, haunted faces, filthy streets, hard times. What I saw was happy, smiling faces, an astonishingly vibrant atmosphere, clean streets, creativity everywhere and a deep warmth and kindness for other people. Sure people wore older clothes, drove older cars, were riding bikes and buses rather than driving SUV's the size of the Titanic. But the atmosphere was fantastic, far, far more positive than in Spring, TX.

That's the thing about Portland, the atmosphere for creative, intelligent, warm-hearted people is so great that creative, intelligent, warm-hearted people flock to the city even without jobs. As a result Portland is consistently hit harder than other cities in terms of jobs, but consistently people don't care and want to move or stay in Portland. Its very success in creating an atmosphere, its livability, means that the population outstrips the amount of jobs it can provide in times of difficulty. However, the creativity, intelligence and warm-heartedness of its people continue to make the city a better place to live. I moved to Portland in 1997, at the height of the Clinton era boom (bubble?) and the place is a strikingly better place to be now.

As a caveat, the weather while we were there was bright sunshine, crisp mornings and glorious afternoons. Apparently anywhere Christina and I go we are cursed to bring the sunshine and warmth with us. We both know that it would be foolish to return to Portland because it is hard, hard, hard in the Binmore household in February and March.

Thanks again to Kerry and Josh, Blake, Chase, Kenny, Signe, Lori, and Patrick. For those who missed us this time we will be returning in August, you should check us out, we are awesome.