I'm only happy when it rains...

This is Portland.

Or so everyone seems to tell me.

And yet, I'm not convinced.

I'm not convinced the quirky, whimsical city of wonderful absurdities I visited last year is *here*.  I mean, really...?  Sure, I now know more trannys, carnies, roustabouts, ringleaders, emcees, musicians, goths, groupies, dancers and dominatrix than should really be contained inside ONE city's limits, true... But I think, maybe it's because I'm not currently infatuated with The Unknowns:  Unknown neighborhoods, unknown friends, unknown suitors... now things are becoming familiar, and Oz isn't quite so Emerald.  I mean, don't get me wrong-- everything here is green... did I mention my new love affair with dogwoods and tulips and roses?  Yea.  Quite possibly worth the move just for the flowers... Chloe and I spend our (multiple) daily walks sniffing and snuffling the effulgent flora.   But it's just not... the escape I still adamantly refuse to admit I was seeking.  I wanted to find the Wizard and be granted clemency from Reality.

I'm finally ready to fess up:  I've had an intense two and a half years and battle scars to prove it and I just needed to get out.  I'm tired, I'm tender and I'm in a state of utter turmoil.  Surprisingly, I'm okay with it.  Not "okay with it" the way I was during these past few years, where I wasn't really "okay with it" at all-- where I held a stiff upper lip, smiled on cue and focused nearly all of my energy on anyone or anything else in an effort to not have to admit my world was being torn asunder... but "okay with it" in the way that I realize now, it's time for The Tower to come crashing down and to truly begin anew.

I thought I'd transition easily and flawlessly to Portlandia.  I thought I'd move here with all my lil duckies in a row;  they'd waddle off into some proverbial puddle of perfection and I'd live happily ever after.  Two and a half months later...and...  Nope.  Everything fell through.  Everything.  And for someone who simply usually normally(?) has to merely "think" it to "make" it, it's been a doozy.  I mean, really, Universe?  You want me to actually WORK and put EFFORT forth, for my heart's desires?  Pssshft.  I call shenanigans.  Apparently that's how Portland operates... sure, you can eek by in a matchbox room with food stamps and a bus pass, spewing how you *love* embracing the Bohemian life and you'd never sacrifice your freedom of creative expression that can be found busking on a downtown corner (when you're not thrifting at the Bins) by selling your soul for a real job (the HORROR!  steady income-- *le gasp*!)... but really, that's just 'cuz real jobs are like Unicorns in this land of ports... most don't believe they exist, let alone do they consider them obtainable.  All y'all artists are just bitter about it.  Yup.  I'm calling it:  Shenanigans.

With that being said-- I did manifest a "real" job (maybe I haven't lost my mojo!) and I'm still living my tarot slinging, reiki wrangling, shimmying dreams.  It's work, though.  It's absolutely mind blowing to me how MUCH work it is... and I'm loving and appreciating it so much more, because of that.  So, thank you, Portland (with your Vitamin D deficiency, relentless rain and inundation of pale men with paler follow through)-- you may not have granted me my Wish, but you gave me something better: the push into the Void to figure out how to do it myself.

Spring has Sprung

Goddess awakens, stretches Her limbs and shakes the snow from Her hair... Winter settled like a blanket while She slept.  Her toes curl, wiggle: disrupting the rich soil far beneath the ice.  Verdant shoots issue forth, pressing towards the dawn-lit sky: a dappling of green amidst the winter white.  Smiling at the blossomings about Her, She gently traces Her fingers through the snow... rivulets form and follow Her fingers' trippings, undulations down the hillsides.  Paths towards the River, paths toward Life. Life paths.  And so it has begun.  She rises, the first breaths of warm air issue forth, carrying the hints of cherry and apple blossom-- sweet, heady, inspiring.  Her rising forth harkens the song of lark and robin.  The curiosity of newly birthed fauna.  The beginning has begun.  Potentiality has sprung.