The Luminist

#180: I love New York?

I’ve always felt meh about New York. It’s not that I’m not a city person. London is my favorite place on the planet, and Amsterdam has recently stolen my heart [https://theluminist.substack.com/p/174-home]. But New York from the very beginning has rubbed me the wrong way. It all started in Western PA. No one from my hometown ever put New York on a pedestal. Quite the opposite. We mostly thought those people were crazy. I first actually set foot in NYC in 1979 as part of a gaggle of 5th grade girls on an Eastern Seaboard van tour with our gym teacher. My hazy memory puts us standing at the base of the Statue of Liberty, navigating the dank subway, sleeping in a church basement. But I much more clearly remember (and remember enjoying) Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and the waves of Rehoboth Beach. My next visit wasn’t much more memorable. In 1995 I took a flight north as a 27-year-old MBA student on a mass cattle call for a consulting job with Coopers & Lybrand (RIP). Our little plane from Raleigh-Durham was buffeted by thunderstorms. Airsickness bags were put through their paces. We kissed the ground upon landing at LaGuardia. My next set of memories from that weekend were interviews with the partners in their hotel rooms. I don’t recall the trip home thankfully, just that I got a call a few days later, securing a post-MBA gig. Not in NYC, God forbid, but DC. I looked forward to my leafy suburbs and limited commute. Then there were the career-building years, when my husband and I both regularly frequented New York for an investor, or board, or lawyer something-or-other. Sometimes we’d cross paths, snagging a kiss and lunch before running to our meetings. Here, I find a rare highlight of New York in my Mike memory rolodex: a 2016 viewing of Hamilton, sharing martinis in the Westin lobby post-show, reliving our favorite parts, characters, raps. That was the last show we saw together before Mike died [https://theluminist.substack.com/p/2-why-i-wouldnt-trade-away-the-grief]. But lingering on that memory, I don’t find any of my fondness for it turning towards NYC. It was about me and Mike; the setting was trivial. In the ten years since, going to New York was like seeing that loud uncle-in-law at family functions — an accepted part of life, but never, ever, a goal. Why would I choose to go to a place where the buildings were so high sunlight didn’t hit the streets? Where you could assume you were sitting in pigeon poop if you wanted to sit anywhere at all? Where the honking horns and big LCD ads made thinking an act of equal parts willpower and disassociation? (Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com [http://theluminist.substack.com].) But I had my first new thought about NYC last week, right after I got off the train. I had resignedly taken the trip north for my non-profit Experience Camps [https://theluminist.substack.com/p/133-from-farm-to-table-from-grief]’ board meeting and our annual fundraising gala. After a cozy two hours in the Quiet Car, I had scurried through the bowels of Penn Station to the modern cathedral that is Moynihan Train Terminal. The sunbeams ricochetted off every surface. The shopfronts looked like a movie set. Even the jumbotron ads looked elegant. As I lingered to take it all in, a thought pinged: Is the Quiet Car and Moynihan the best part of my NYC trips? Without even setting foot in the city proper, I was already sure I had my highlight reel complete. That’s the kind of on-repeat story I have self-righteously marched out trip after trip. Then, out of nowhere, something new arose: What a stingy thought. Ok Scrooge, everywhere outside of America people sing the praises of NYC. They share their highlight reel from their visit, or at the very least, their aspiration to someday create one. And here it is, right up the road from me, a place I have the chance to see regularly. Yet I somehow spurn it. Why don’t, for a weekend, I try to see what they all see? Why don’t I do what I say I LOVE doing, and look beyond the surly manners and historical layers of grit? Why don’t I cut the judging, and spend some time noticing [https://theluminist.substack.com/p/157-three-years-later-i-finally-understand] first? It was a nice idea, but old habits die hard. I tore myself away from the station and headed uptown, dodging tourists and suits and fashionistas as I trudged to the Times Square Hilton to drop off my stuff. Then I walked the nine blocks north to the ExCamps Board meeting, trying to discreetly plug my ears as taxis blared at each other. At least I fit in, I thought. Everyone is scowling. Once at the restaurant, I mazed my way to the back room, appreciating the sensation of burrowing my way out of the city, and walked into a group of colleagues turned friends. Last year I was still getting to know this crew. Eighteen months in, I’ve now jumped in with both feet. I co-chair a Risk Committee, co-facilitate a Caregiver Advisory Board, know the team on a first name basis. On this particular evening, we talked about public relations and AI. From start to finish the meeting had that special sauce of intellectual stimulation and emotional fulfillment, aka what happens when you’re part of a team deeply dedicated to a cause. I was already on Cloud 9 when CEO Sara shared, “The team and I were joking around that people who are helpful and kind are like poptarts: convenient and delicious! But Sue is not just a regular poptart, she’s a frosted poptart. The best kind!” Ridiculous metaphors back-to-back with convos about grief and loss — these are my people. I practically floated back to the Hilton. I always knew that New York had a rich history of nonprofit and cause-oriented work. But finally I was a part of it: passionate conversations with dry humor, loud laughter, and an aggressively can-do attitude. NYC isn’t just hard, it’s rambunctious. It’s gonna throw its hat in the ring for a good cause and, with a smile on its face, give the fight all it’s got. Even if it loses, it’ll shake hands, and be back tomorrow. Hm. Point for New York. The next morning I opened my curtains, expecting to see the sheer rock face of another hotel blocking any form of natural light. Instead my head swiveled, taking in a to-die-for vista of the city. Ancient water towers topped bricked buildings to my left. Gleaming skyscrapers stood sentry on my right. Red industrial cranes loomed in the far distance. Smaller scenes revealed racks of clothing in a fashion house window; six silent figures sitting around a conference table; a tiny atrium with trees reaching upwards far below. “Wow New York, you are PRETTY!” I literally said out loud in my surprise. Another point. I headed to a breakfast joint near Central Park. The sun was shining, the spring leaves were unfurling, the horns were honking. But this May day, they had a cheerful quality to them, like a boisterous family playing a board game. I’d just crossed 5th avenue when the green leaves of Central Park gave way to green tables and green shelves covered in… books? I had to pause to re-orient. There I was, standing in the middle of a bookstore, a light breeze ruffling my hair and flipping a couple covers open. The horns were still going off, but some dial in my mind turned the volume down as my fingers grazed the books, laying face up as if sunbathing. I picked up a current bestseller, a Rachel Cusk I’d had my eye on, then lingered at the NYC-themed table. There, a slate-blue cover with an etching of a pigeon drew me in. New York Sketches [https://bookshop.org/a/92879/9781946022738]by E. B. White [https://bookshop.org/a/92879/9781946022738]. Any book with ‘sketches’ in the title must be about observing, and since I always have my future (third) book on my mind — NODES: Noticing Odes — I figured EB could school me. How else could I justify buying a book solely dedicated to a city I definitely still didn’t like? I pulled it on top of my pile and headed to the register. For those keeping score at home…New York is up three. After a lap around the MoMa, I settled myself in the outdoor courtyard, a cold brew in hand, and pulled out my new purchase. The intro was penned by White’s granddaughter; “He was a master at finding words for the small, unforgettable moments. The small moments of wonder.” I raised my chin from the page, curious to imitate Mr White and see what I found. My eyes gravitated to a man in a black-watch-patterned blazer, black Beats headphones, round glasses, beat up sneaks, his foot tap-tap-tapping to the beat, while he knit. Looking over him like a parent checking their child’s homework was Rodin’s sculpture of John the Baptist. There’s no point counting anymore. New York wins. We all come with pre-conceptions (NYC is full of loud-mouth bullies), comparisons (London is better), and judgments (do we really have to honk this much??). Every situation we walk into, we’ll bring a sack full of those. But how do we remember to look beyond those too? To look up from our well-worn thoughts of “I like this, but not that” or “I wish it was this way, not that way”, and actually see what’s here? Because the truth is, New York never did anything wrong. I had just never given it a chance. I had this story that it was too loud and too grimy and too skyscraper-y and I would just never have a good time there. So I didn’t. But come on, it’s New York. And finally I was there with enough time and enough goodwill to actually notice. To seeing beyond ourselves, Sue Subscribe on Substack [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe] to receive The Luminist in your inbox every Saturday — an invitation to notice reality, rather than the stories our minds and culture like to spin. P.S. I’ve made another video for the Loss Canon [https://theluminist.substack.com/p/170-the-loss-canon]: The Books that Got Me Through. If you’re into books and/or videos, you can watch it right here [https://youtu.be/-eGg0GabxgA?si=jSC7HzCJsSc3Hfnx]. Get full access to The Luminist at theluminist.substack.com/subscribe [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

#179: Zoning out.

My Uber driver’s monologue began the moment the back hatch of her Volvo lifted. For 26 minutes, she shared her ride-share maximization strategies (always chose passengers with the longest rides), her conspiracy theories (cloud seeding and chemtrails over Louisiana are killing us), and the two times she’d been reported for dangerous driving (those passengers just wanted their money back). By the time we reached Louis Armstrong International Airport, I was firmly on the passengers’ side. I checked my bag and descended into the airport’s belly. The 6am, post-Jazz-Fest TSA line greeted me at the bottom of the stairs. I took it personally. Ten days in someone else’s beautiful-but-not-mine home had drained my battery. Add to that a broken writing rhythm and the stress of my last Do Loss [https://suedeagle.com/book] book event; a creeping Scrooge feeling had bubbled up. Not even walks with Olive around Audubon Park [https://theluminist.substack.com/p/178-dog-time] on beautiful May days had been able to shake it. My brain wanted to be elsewhere. Now. (Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com [http://theluminist.substack.com].) Which, in my book, is no harm, no foul. We all get worn out, stressed out, bored out of our minds sometimes. We all deserve to cope dirty when we need to, aka do whatever works to get us through the rough patches. When that craving bubbles up, I’ll melt into the couch in front of Star Wars movies for hours. But I didn’t think a slightly unhinged Uber driver and a disrupted writing routine reached that threshold. Yet I could still feel myself craving the emotional equivalent of airplane mode: zoning out. Once I cleared the TSA line and boarded, I tucked my WSJ and current novel into the seat back pocket. I never buy the wifi on a plane — an old habit from my corporate days, when 32,000 feet was the only work-free zone on earth. Devices inert. World on mute. I noticed I still craved my usual escapes: checking the kids’ locations, reading news articles online, scrolling. I just couldn’t have them. I wasn’t feeling all that hard copy content in my seat-back stash either, so I settled on staring into space. As my mind meandered, a six-week-old conversation popped into my head. My pal Deb — devoted Buddhist, small-animal vet in the Vail Valley — and I were debriefing after my very first book talk in Colorado, when she gave me a new perspective on my beloved coping dirty: maybe when we reach for simple pleasures, what we’re looking for isn’t distraction at all. Maybe it’s connection. Because not all escapes are created equal. Some leave me feeling worse than before I picked up my phone, or reached into the fridge, or retail-therapied my day away, or watched Dave Chapelle’s latest Netflix special. But some leave me feeling strangely more myself. There’s a guy on Instagram called Ben the Bookseller. He films himself in his bookshop recommending books, talking smack about book covers, and revealing unknown gems with this completely unhinged enthusiasm, silly mannerisms and unique British style. His hair stands straight up, barely contained. I watch him and I laugh. I copy down his recommendations — Oh, I have Swimming Studies on my TBR pile, I’ll pull it out as Ben just gave it a glowing review! After one-way communing with Ben, I feel genuinely good. I don’t feel distracted. I feel re-connected with parts of myself that I cherish and enjoy: the book nerd, the endless learner, the anglophile with dry humor. But then there are those other times — you know the ones — when you get sucked into whatever the algorithm decides you need, and forty minutes later you surface feeling vaguely gross, like you just ate an entire sleeve of Oreos and can’t remember doing it. Same phone. Same app. Completely different experience. Deb’s reframe changed the question I now ask myself. Not do I need a break? (The answer is almost always yes.) But what am I actually hungry for? Sometimes it’s a laugh. Sometimes it’s an idea. Sometimes it’s a person who reminds you that the world contains people worth knowing. So on the plane that day, I ended up mostly staring out the window. The clouds and landscapes below grazed by, and I just let my thoughts do the same thing. The irritation eventually thinned and gave way to peace which gave way to curiosity. To openness. To looking outward once again, at the elderly gentleman next to me with his Vietnam Veteran ball cap, to the flight attendant’s boxy red glasses, to the business man sound asleep on the aisle. An hour later, I felt like I had landed back in a core part of my being: the Noticer who is endlessly content watching the world eddy and swirl, and slowly unspooling its mysteries. To finding what brings you home, Sue Subscribe on Substack [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe] to receive The Luminist in your inbox every Saturday — an invitation to notice reality, rather than the stories our minds and culture like to spin. Get full access to The Luminist at theluminist.substack.com/subscribe [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

#178: Dog time.

I’m not a dog person. To all you dog lovers, I promise this is not a moral failing. I’ve just never had an affinity for our furry canine friends. No past dog bite, no growling incident, no slobber on a silk shirt to trace it back to. I’m just not that into them. Which, as any dog lover knows, makes every dog on this planet drawn to me like a bad boyfriend post-bender. The Finleys and Bellas, the Baileys and Teds — they all want to sit on my lap, lick my face, jump up with sharp claws and leave a mark. I am inordinately interesting in my authentic disinterest. So when a house-sitting gig in New Orleans came with a dog attached, I said yes to the house (ten days in a city I love, 30,000 steps a day around Audubon Park, my favorite daughter sighted regularly), and quietly dreaded the rest. Her name was Olive. A black lab. I’d met her before, racing around the fenced yard of my regular Uptown airbnb. Naturally, I had a plan. Morning walk. Food in the slow-down bowl. Meds tucked into cream cheese. Water refilled. Poop scooped. Done. Except a dog is not a to-do list. Olive had not received the memo. (Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com [http://theluminist.substack.com].) On our first morning walk, we had just settled into a brisk pace when I was yanked sideways. I looked down the leash to see Olive in a full commando crouch: low to the ground, creeping forward, in theory sneaking up on a bushy, twitching tail… the squirrel long gone before she got anywhere close. This turned out to be Olive’s favorite way of making her way around the park. She didn’t care about people or ducks or even other dogs. But every time we saw a squirrel (frequently!), she’d abruptly stop and crouch, doing an awkward but earnest impression of a stalking panther. A white-haired gentleman stopped to watch her. “Look at her getting lower and lower!” He was delighted. So, weirdly, was I. This was the first place my plan fell apart. I could not keep a consistent Fitbit-monitored pace: I had to slow down for her. Olive operated on squirrel time, not my time, and all I could do was surrender. Together, we entered a timelessness I don’t know is available to me in my regular life. I started seeing things I would have missed if I’d been able to maintain my typical march. The guy playing harmonica alongside his boom box. Another making tea on a concrete bench with his camping stove. Swans, white herons, maintenance workers fanning out across the golf course at dawn with leaf blowers and weed whackers like a small, safety-goggled army. I spend plenty of time in nature at home, but many times I’m so far up in my own head I might as well be in a windowless room. With Olive stopping and starting like a game of freeze tag, my head was not an option. She also turned out to be a social credential I didn’t know I needed. Strangers don’t talk to strangers in most cities, but they’ll talk to a dog, and sometimes even to the person holding the leash. “Is that a puppy?” (Nope, just a maniac.) “My dog is friendly! Is yours??” (Great, I’m just the sitter, so I truly cannot say.) And then there were Olive’s actual people — the FOOs, Friends of Olive — who recognized her yellow collar and stopped to say hello. “She’s such a sweet dog!” one woman in a sun hat told me, and I nodded, because I couldn’t deny it. So the results of my dog experiment are in: I was right all along, I am not a dog person. Ten days with Olive confirmed it, not cracked it. That thought I used to have — maybe someday when I’m older and less nomadic, I’ll get a dog for company — is gone. I didn’t fall for the dog. I fell for the life the dog made me live. The walks I wouldn’t have taken at that stop-and-go pace. The things I wouldn’t have seen moving at my usual speed. The strangers who stopped to chat because of the tail-wagging creature on the end of my leash. The routine of another living thing depending on you in the early morning quiet. To trying a new gear, Sue Subscribe on Substack [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe] to receive The Luminist in your inbox every Saturday — an invitation to notice reality, rather than the stories our minds and culture like to spin. Get full access to The Luminist at theluminist.substack.com/subscribe [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

#177: Smoke detectors.

I was so happy to be back in my own bed. I snuggled beneath my fuzzy blanket, glanced at my teetering pile of books on my night stand, plugged my phone into my super-secret drawer outlet, and stared at the ceiling, the faint smell of chlorine from my evening swim still on my skin. I kicked my legs like a toddler with the thrill of being home. Home did not return the favor. At 1am, I was yanked out of blissful slumber by an automaton voice amplified by a chorus of beeps: “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Before I fully regained consciousness, I was standing upright, pajama pants swooshing around my legs from my super speed. Was the sound coming from the smoke detector above my bed? The one in the hall? Downstairs? All of them? I slid open the pocket door to my bedroom, sniffing for smoke. Nothing. I flipped on every single light in the entire house as I scoured for the source. Thirty seconds felt like three hours, and then the voice and its greek chorus finally ceased. (Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com [http://theluminist.substack.com].) I have an issue with smoke detectors. I’m glad they’re there to (potentially) save my life, but it’s a devil’s bargain: traumatize you while keeping you safe. Set fire to your soul with false alarms. For years I’ve traced my hate/hate relationship with these plastic demonic hockey pucks to, of course, the big line in the sand: Mike’s death [https://theluminist.substack.com/p/2-why-i-wouldnt-trade-away-the-grief]. They obviously evolved from being necessary evil to enemy for life when I was the solo parent trying to protect the kids, aka give them a sense of normalcy when our entire life was a dumpster fire. The inevitable unexpected beeps — due to low batteries, power outages, ghosts — set me over the edge at a time when I had no reserves. No middle of the night help. No Mike. But while walking the neighborhood waiting for revisions to this post to pop into my head — a key part of the process — I realized that narrative isn’t quite right. I’ve been conveniently blaming the loss of Mike because that’s what I do. His death is the magnet to which the spiky metal shards of life are drawn. Bad day? Must be the grief. Can’t sleep? Widow stuff. Levitate out of bed at 1am over a false alarm? Obviously because I lost my husband. Hmmm. Not this time. I’ve blocked out the exact year (2010? 2013?) but I can picture our old house on Stones Throw Drive, and the night the carbon monoxide detector put on an avant garde performance. I did the same sort of levitating move before Mike even had the chance to react, and raced for the source of the sound: our daughter’s room. My running turned to flying when the carpeted bedroom floor met the hardwood hallway, and I did my best Jimmy ‘Superfly’ Snuka impression — followed by a face plant that knocked one of my (fake) front teeth right out. You can guess what came next: split lip, chin bruises, banged elbows, a 2am rendezvous with the local firemen. All for a false alarm. An hour later, everyone was piled into the big bed, the kids’ breath evening out as they drifted off, Mike’s arm sprawled protectively across me. But I couldn’t sleep. I was working too hard to not let my shaking shoulders bounce the bed. To not let anyone hear the sobs that heaved through my chest. The healing process started and stalled and restarted. The bruises and the split lip began as a good story for work, but left a lingering green that no makeup could quite cover. The giant purple-yellow contusion on my hip ensured that for a few weeks I had to plan my approach into each new seat. And then there were the hours spent in the dentist’s chair, reinserting that wayward tooth. I asked the guys at the office, “Explain to me why you’d ever get in a fist fight? I think I know what it feels like now to get punched in the face. How could this be worth it? I totally don’t get it.” But even after the physical injuries had healed, I stayed more fearful, more gun-shy, than I had been before. A month later, after biting into a taco and coming out with one less front tooth, the temporary having lost its gluey oomph, I finally had to fess up to Mike, “I’m having a really hard time getting over this.” He nodded and took me into his arms. I can’t remember how I dug myself out of that. Good care from him? A change of seasons? Space? An end to the ongoing dentist visits? Dunno. Time passed. I functioned again. But those high-pitched beeps embedded themselves in my psyche… or perhaps somewhere deeper. In whatever part of the brain skips the thinking and goes straight to FULL BODY PANIC. I’m afraid of plenty of things: spiders, airplane turbulence, driving on windy roads, dentists. But there is something claw-like about smoke detector beeps and their hold on me. The talons are ten inches deep. So there I was in the Treehouse, in that eerie quiet after the spectral voice ceased its FIRE! soliloquy, heart galloping in my ears. After one more lap around the house, I climbed back into bed and opened up a book, since there was no way in God’s green earth I was getting back to sleep any time soon. So I might as well read… While, of course, intermittently wondering what the hell is wrong with me. The next day, I made an executive decision. I could not do this two nights in a row. So I climbed up on my ladder and decapitated each and every hard-wired smoke detector from the ceilings, put them in ziplocs, then placed them in time-out in the garage. That night I slept like a baby. The next day Richie came over, and together we followed the YouTube video’s advice: blow air into the detectors and see if bugs come out. Two of the four produced a shower of gnats over the mudroom’s pristine white counter. “Damn, Gina!” we said simultaneously. Then we tag-teamed the re-installation, him up on the ladder, me handing the gnat-free units up for placement. I’ve slept soundly (fingers crossed) ever since. So, what do I do with this? The only thing I can do: learn to accept that I’m gonna take on water every time a smoke detector beeps. Period. Not because Mike died, though that didn’t help. Not because I’m broken or dramatic or need to try harder. But because one night I flew down a hallway to protect my kid and my face hit the floor, and then my brain filed that under NEVER AGAIN in a drawer I don’t have the key to. Some fears don’t resolve. They don’t become an opportunity for growth. They don’t transform into wisdom. They just... stay. They get filed. When this whole scenario happens again, which it undeniably will, my brain will do its encore performance: Mike is dead. My teeth are broken. My babies are unsafe. Curtain up, curtain down. I’ll watch it, score it like a bad talent show — zeros for everyone! — and move on. I don’t have to love my triggers. But I do have to love, and accept, me. Sleeping soundly until next time, Sue Subscribe on Substack [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe] to receive The Luminist in your inbox every Saturday — an invitation to notice reality, rather than the stories our minds and culture like to spin. Get full access to The Luminist at theluminist.substack.com/subscribe [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

#176: Portland.

The Willamette River splits Portland in two, giving ‘Bridge City’ its moniker, and hosting a stretch of park named after a governor from the 70’s. My mind is on east coast time, so at 7am I’m fully awake and strolling Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the river a flat shade of gray reflecting the morning clouds of the Pacific Northwest. I am the only tourist on this stretch, but not the only human. A few joggers, a cyclist on his way to work. But we are far outnumbered by people dressed differently from us. People who slept here. The giant garbage bags. The blankets draped like capes. The mobile shower units up the way, idling like school buses. A volunteer steps out of one, a bag of clothes in hand — someone’s old ones, I assume, exchanged for fresh. Another man is still asleep on a bench, his worldly belongings arranged around him in a tidy grouping. I hug the riverside of the path and keep walking. I am fine, I tell myself. Except my body doesn’t believe me. (Subscribe on Substack [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe] to receive The Luminist in your inbox every Saturday — an invitation to notice reality, rather than the stories our minds and culture like to spin.) Here’s the thing about me and travel: I’ve been a lot of places. Chile. China. Greenland. Kuwait at least ten times. The UAE a handful. I’ve navigated airports where I couldn’t read the signs, roads where I wasn’t sure of the rules, places where the culture was so different from mine that I was essentially operating on instinct. I might have been wary, but I was never afraid. Generally speaking, I was energized, curious, aware. In other words, I am not a nervous traveler. I have a well-worn internal compass, pattern recognition engine, and street smarts seeded in 1980’s London when I would walk back to my study-abroad dorm across Waterloo Bridge at 3am. I know when to make eye contact and when to look away. I know when to broaden my shoulders and assume a ‘don’t mess with me’ glare. I know when the other side of the street is the right side of the street. All of which was completely useless in Portland, Oregon. I stayed at the iconic Heathman, a historic Portland landmark with a library on the mezzanine, stacked floor-to-ceiling with books all signed by their authors. It was a leather chair, quiet nook heaven. Evidently this is where writers stay when they come to town, and this newbie author wanted a piece of that. I loved it straight away. That afternoon I visited the Portland Art Museum. It reminded me immediately of the National Gallery of Art back home — the same combination of an old-school, regal-bricked wing sidled up to a glass-enclosed, modern one. The best of both worlds, Portland’s heritage and its reach toward something new. The shiny Rothko Pavilion had opened just a few months before. This was news to me: Oregon was Rothko’s home. I’ve chased this abstract painter around the world from NYC to Norfolk to London, never realizing his origin story began in the Pacific Northwest. The museum holds a concise collection not only of Rothkos, but artists he influenced: Frankenthaler, Calder, Truitt and more. I stood in front of a Rothko for a long time, letting it do what Rothkos do. My heart rate had finally settled. Then I walked outside. A man was lying on the sidewalk. Not sitting. Lying. His belongings in a bag beside him, one arm over his eyes against the afternoon light. And just like that, I was fibrillating again. The next morning I made coffee and sat next to the window. My 6th floor room looked out over Salmon Street: A jogger. Another jogger. A woman walking a dog with the brisk pace of someone who has places to be. Normal. Fine. Then I noticed him. A man in a wheelchair, positioned at the corner as if patiently waiting for something... And sure enough, a woman appeared from the apartment building across the street, walking towards him. She handed him something I could not quite see from my vantage through the unfurling spring leaves of the sidewalk tree. But I could guess: breakfast. They exchanged a few words. He nodded. She went back inside. I stood at my window for a long time after that. What struck me wasn’t just that he was there. It was that everyone had adjusted. The woman with her breakfast. The joggers who ran past without breaking stride. A city that had simply incorporated this. To everyone, it seemed perfectly normal. While I fibrillated. I feel bad even writing about this. Somehow I’m defensive and protective of Portland, a city I’d never been to before, know no one in, and to which I will likely never return. I also know I’m walking a delicate line: trying to talk about an inherently political issue without getting political. But seriously, that is exactly what I’m trying to do here. Because it’s what I do at The Luminist in general: notice. The goal of writing about this experience isn’t to judge or cast blame or shout about policies or even search for a solution. I’m writing about it because I can’t stop thinking about it, and I left Portland a week ago. So to be clear, I was never in danger. No one approached me, threatened me, asked me for anything. Portland was not Kuwait, where the insane drivers alone could kill you. It was not Jordan, where face-covered police check your taxi for explosives as you enter the airport gates. But the situation in Portland got under my skin in a way none of those places had. I think what I can’t get over is the contrast. The relentlessness of it. Beautiful hotel, man in a wheelchair. Soaring museum, man lying on the sidewalk. Joggers with their dogs, blankets on benches. Back and forth, back and forth. In Kuwait I knew what I was dealing with. In Portland, I couldn’t figure out what to expect next. And maybe that’s it. Maybe what rattled me wasn’t danger. It was the not knowing what to make of any of it: Am I supposed to make eye contact or not? Do the people living here want me to acknowledge them or politely look away? Are they happy? Are they here by choice? Or are they struggling everyday, exhausted and desperate? How are there so many of them? Where did they all come from? Did they all come to Portland because of the acceptance and community here, or did they start with a house in Portland then lose it? Is this better than any other options they might have had? Beyond the breakfast lady and shower guy, is someone helping them? Do they need help? Do they want it? And maybe the loudest question of all in my head: how did this become normal?? I flew home to DC with a singular focus: I needed to swim. I needed sensory deprivation. Water over my head, the world muffled, my body finally getting to just... stop receiving. I watched my bubbles float upward as I dolphin kicked on my back four feet below the surface, far removed from the confusing real world for a few relieving minutes. I don’t have a conclusion to offer you here. You don’t need my verdict, and neither does Portland. I’m far from qualified to give one either way. I do know that some of the rhetorical questions I asked above actually have answers. I have been doing a deep dive into Portland’s homeless (unhoused??) situation since I got home. But again, a solution or even an opinion is not my goal with this post. It just feels important to write about. And a little risky, but that comes with my chosen territory. I talk about loss for a living after all, a topic that most people, God bless them, would like to pretend doesn’t exist. Whether by nature or nurture, at this point in my life I’m constitutionally incapable of looking away from the hard, confusing stuff, even when it rattles me to my core. So that’s what I’m doing here: looking closely, noticing what I feel, examining my thoughts as they rush through my head, and then laying out all of my chicken-scratch notes and journaling pages on my kitchen island. Sometimes the pieces click into place, so the initial jumble becomes a completed puzzle. But sometimes things don’t fit into a neat picture. Sometimes things just stay messy. To looking anyway, Sue Subscribe on Substack [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe] to receive The Luminist in your inbox every Saturday — an invitation to notice reality, rather than the stories our minds and culture like to spin. P.S. I’ve made another video for the Loss Canon [https://theluminist.substack.com/p/170-the-loss-canon]: The Books that Got Me Through. If you’re into books and/or videos, you can watch it right here [https://youtu.be/SKp5BKRyEN0]. Get full access to The Luminist at theluminist.substack.com/subscribe [https://theluminist.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]