Create, Preserve and Destroy

I am not an expert, or even well versed in the Hindu religion, but I do know that Brahma is the creator of everything, Vishnu is the preserver of the world and Shiva is the destroyer of all. All three are needed in order for there to be life and creation.

I am reminded of this tenet of Hinduism when I look at my room. I clean it, dust it, vacuum and arrange. I purge clutter. I am amazed when, months later, I still have more to purge (how is it possible for one person to accumulate so much?). The room is beautiful, tranquil and inviting. It stays this way for a few days, or if I'm lucky, a few weeks. Then, piece by piece, a scrap of paper, a receipt, two extra glasses on the bedside table, socks on the floor, shoes scattered about, the room starts to disintegrate into chaos. It gets worse until I think it can't get worse, and then it does. By this time I've spent days doing nothing but writing cover letters, resumes, article queries, ideas, blogs, emails, notes, to do lists and messages. Creation happens and it multiplies until it can't contain itself. And then the destroyer comes, when I can no longer stand it, I remember my mother's words when I get overwhelmed: pick a small corner, focus on it and get it cleaned. Then move to the next corner, focus on it, no distractions, until it is cleaned. Repeat the process.

I've created, I've preserved and I've destroyed this room time and time again. Or maybe it has created, preserved and destroyed me, thousands of times.

I'll have you know that were it not for Fleming's messy desk, his petri dish would never have laid hidden for the time it took to grow penicillin. The mess hid the dish, the penicillin grew, and now we have one of the most universally useful drugs in all of history. All thanks to a creative mess.

I believe my room shall create something worthwhile. It already created three more articles for the PW, for which I am entirely grateful. More creation, more preservation, more destruction to create again!

Things I've learned....

This is a list of things I've come to find out, learn or fully realized in the last few months....

1. Two years ago I bought a pair of Gap jeans for $50. They now have two holes in the thighs which need to be patched. Subsequently, because I've held on to these simple, waist-slung, wide leg jeans which now have holes, I have a pair of jeans that are now comparable to the trendiest $70 jeans at Gap. Sometimes it does pay to hold on to stuff.

2. A sign that capitalism only really works for those who already have money and is skewed toward the already successful, I've come to realize that even in journalism, it takes money to make money. You need to make money to live, but you need to have money to make money, so where do you get the original money from? Therein lies the problem.

3. Usually, almost without exception, the hardest jobs and the people who work in the hardest manual labor are usually the least compensated. Even a teacher, who although doesn't physically work hard, has one of the most important jobs around, and we all know that teachers are paid poorly.

4. Hand in hand with number 3- a person's earnings are usually equated with their worth as a human and in this society, but is often inversely proportional to the important and vital work they accomplish in said society.

5. I might have over watered some of the flowers I was trying to grow, but some of them are growing. My freesia is not straight but bends to the ground with leaves that are sickly and straggly, but the freesia is blooming and I now have yellow, red and purple flowers. Some of my rannunculus may have died, but I have a few hearty stems and roses have sprung from the ground when I thought they had died. These flowers aren't perfect but despite their issues, they've come to bloom as successfully as their prettier cousins. Likewise, I'm not the prettiest, smartest, wealthiest, most successful woman around and I know I've had my issues to deal with. But despite them, I still bloom quite nicely which proves you don't perfection or the best to do well.

RIP Portland Sentinel and Thanks for All the Memories

One day in June 2008, not long after graduating from college and in a post-college comedown funk I thought would last forever, I was scheduled to have an interview with Cornelius Swart, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Portland Sentinel.

I drove past a very dated building and as my stacked pumps clattered on the dingy steps of the Sentinel office I was more than a bit worried; I was confronted with a trash bin collecting rain water and exposed rotten beams and a hole in the ceiling made me think, "what kind of business is operating in such a shack?"

I wanted the internship with the Portland Sentinel although for years I had poo-pooed the opportunity. I wasn't itching to work for free as a post-grad but I count my time with the Sentinel as one of the best in my life.

It was important for me to impress upon Cornelius that I had a passion for writing he couldn't find in any other internship candidate-although my journalism background was in features, not hard news which was the Sentinel's main trade.

I went home that day after the Sentinel interview, crying and certain I had fucked up, illustrating how green I was, proving myself to be ill equipped to be the kind of journalist the Sentinel would want.

Two days later I jumped for joy when Roger Anthony of the Sentinel called me and let me know I was on board.

An amazingly hot Northwest summer ensued as did $4-a-gallon gas, economic and personal depression, but little by little I became the kind of reporter I wanted to be. I attended (and enjoyed) neighborhood association meetings, scheduling interviews with community leaders and activists, pitching story ideas and building a portfolio of well written news stories. A friendly community of writers and fellow post-grad struggling journalists embraced me. I was invited to barbecues and Friday evening beer get-togethers. And I look back on that summer, the toughest in my life, and thank the Sentinel and Mr. Swart and Mara Grunbaum and Roger Anthony and James Reddick and everyone for giving me a home and work when I most needed it.

In years past, aspiring reporters would pitch and pitch and write for scrap money at local community publications; they would cut their teeth on smaller media outlets working up the ladders to larger, better known publications. Being a working journalist has always been hard, but what makes this line of work one of the hardest is that local and small community papers are going out of business, leaving a hole where the ladder's first rung should be. I am so proud and count myself so lucky to have cut my teeth at the Sentinel while I had the opportunity and no matter what happens in my professional future, I will always have a portfolio of the stories I've written, stories I'm proud of, stories that show a glimpse of what it was like to be scared shitless, 21, post-grad and pursuing the thing that made me happiest.

Thank you to Cornelius and the Portland Sentinel for giving me the opportunity to start my career at an amazing and award-winning news outlet. Portland is a better city because of the Sentinel's legacy. I am so sorry that the Sentinel will no longer be reporting North Portland's news

All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you.

Can I Hustle to Flow?

In my flowing I've been hustling half-heartedly
So can I hustle full tilt long enough
To flow?

Tolkein wrote, "Not all those who wander are lost." In this way I feel as though I wander sometimes because I want to and other times because I am lost. But I think that what we think of as being lost just means we are on a path that's hard to see until you're far enough along to look back and see where you came from. Only then, I think, can you see where you're going and that you are, indeed, on a path.

Feet have hit this pavement several times over
Car's driven past this spot too many times to count
And yet today
For the first time
I look down and see with all of my worry
This, transcribed in wet concrete that dried
"Don't worry about a thing,
every little thing is gonna be alright."
---Bob Marley