strike that

75 septembers

Well. I got my ticket onward.

I’m flying on Tuesday to Portland. Once again, leaving a place I’m not ready to leave. Planning a possible return before I’ve even packed my bags. Eck.

At the moment I have no job, no job prospects, and no commitments in Portland except the room in the house I finally arranged earlier this week. Here I am housed and fed and do hard rewarding work all day with the sort of people whose departures I mourn after knowing them for three days.

But I’m leaving, and I’m not sure it’s the best idea. If I could make $500 a month here I could pay for my storage unit and my phone and my miscellaneous drinks consumption, but my do-anywhere job ended with August. So I guess that’s the main reason I’m going home. And it’s maybe 10% about getting started with whatever is next, but seriously? Ten percent is generous.

Yesterday I helped build a playground with an organization called Kaboom. Their mission is A great place to play within walking distance of every child in North America, but since Katrina they are “bringing play back to the Gulf Coast.” In four days they have organized 10 playground builds, during which hundreds of volunteers from nonprofits and businesses and community groups descended on plots of vacant land in Louisiana and Mississippi and transformed them into lawns and slides and sandboxes and jungle gyms. I built picnic tables.

And today I pulled down the ceiling of the ground floor of a duplex, and scraped mold off the frame. And I guess that doesn’t sound fun, plus I haven’t slept in what feels like weeks, plus I spend most of the day filthy and sweaty and beat. But I’m not sure I could love it more. Every single day I have been here I have met someone fabulous and learned some new skill and made something happen for someone who needed it. When do you ever get to say that?

This time last year, and the year before, I was at Burning Man in the Nevada desert. And it was difficult and appealing for oddly similar reasons. But this doesn’t end on Labor Day. I’m leaving and it’s still here, with so much left to do.

So today, and all this past week and maybe for a few weeks to come, I’m plotting.

posted by tortaluga @ 8:25 AM