Day 98: On the Bus Mall

October 28th, 2007

My day revolved around my departure this afternoon. I wanted to sleep in, but couldn't for some reason, so instead I showered and made a breakfast out of the leftover food that past guests had forgot to remove from the hostel fridge. I had a conversation with a guy from Arizona who was my age and had absolutely no reason to be in Portland other than having a week off of work. These hostels are swimming with a lot of neat young adults with a desire to be someone different/better than they are. After breakfast I sat around the living room while my electronics charged; I would need to be prepared if I am to survive the horrible long bus ride. Killing time, I watched the older hostel patrons mingle. They are in their 30's, 40's and 50's, and seem to exist in their own world. A woman from Colorado is convinced that she can live her life without money or a job. She talks the ear off of an older gentleman who moves to a new city every 2 years, because he doesn't like to feel 'tied down'. I don't want to judge them too harshly (who am I to say that a life SHOULD be lived a certain way) but to me they are a cautionary example, a reminder to not let this year of traveling turn into a lifetime of not planting any roots. A good reminder to keep focused on what I intend to do with myself after this year is over. But I must reiterate that it is just my personal set of priorities; I am trying to make no value judgments on these folk.

I take a bus to the downtown and walk around a while. I grab breakfast. I stop by REI which makes me wish I had a lot of money. I buy a book at Powell Books and go to a park to read. I cannot concentrate, my mind is too caught up thinking about the next phase of this trip:

Downshifting. A whole new set of priorities. A job in Los Angeles. Riding the bus lines. Shirt and tie. Getting up with the sun. A stack of resume's in my backpack. My clothes in a dark corner of Allison's room that I have annexed for my own. I am excited, though anxious about the worst case scenarios.

I find the Portland Bus Mall, or what is left of it. It is in the process of being replaced with a new ambition to revitalize the 'old town. The Decemberists have a song called 'On The Bus Mall', which is about two teenage runaway boys who turn to 'hustling' in order to survive on the Portland streets, and form a strong familial bond in the process. Today, while waiting for my Greyhound Bus, I walked around the Portland Bus Mall, with the hopes of witnessing the backdrop that inspired Colin Meloy to write such a beautiful song; I walked around until my back hurt and my feet ached in my cycling shoes. I never found it because it isn't there anymore. The 'Old Town' is in the process of being turned into a high-end shopping district.

Obviously you can't get too upset when a run-down, crime-prone region of the city is bulldozed to make way for a fashionable shipping district, but you can recognize that this mostly benign action is just one small part of a larger problem in our cities. A condo grows in Brooklyn, and within a few years every business within a 5 block radius is catering to the money-flush clientele that long to live in the high-rises that overlook our city. Pretty soon, the money-less have absolutely no business being in this part of town; and this is how our cities are starting to feel more and more like Los Angeles. I don't know about you but I don't want to live in Los Angeles. I understand that it is all part of a process and new neighborhoods will emerge that cater to the wealth-challenged demographic but eventually the poor will get completely pushed beyond the reach of mass-transit, and then the city will be closed.

NOW... this being said I am fully aware that I myself am a gentrifying force, and there are poorer people in Brooklyn who would despise my effect on the neighborhood. So I guess I am also part of the problem, and so I don't really have an answer for any of this but I'm sure someone much smarter than me does. How does a city provide for those that make it culturally relevant (a young artist demographic), without hampering economic prosperity? There's not much I can do, so I will simply join in the Rent-Spike Shuffle and get a windowless bedroom in Bushwick, and dream of a better life in Denver.

Eventually I just decide to sit in some corporate Mexican establishment next to the bus station and just drink their refillable sodas and use their complimentary WIFI until my bus leaves. It is a fun way to kill a few hours. At the greyhound station I get yelled at for taking pictures inside the terminal; I understand, it IS a security risk. We load onto the bus just after sunset, and I luck out by not having to sit next to anyone. Immediately the personalities of the fellow passengers start to emerge. The loud guy is two rows behind me, and he will talk on his cell phone the whole time. He refers to his girlfriend as a bitch. At one point in the ride he and two others will start swapping stories of times they spent in jail.

The bus ride begins and it's strange to watch everyone go about their business, while I am hurried out of the city on a massive ugly chariot. I have a hard time trusting the bus driver as we navigate the curves and large hills of Central Oregon; eventually I resign myself to whatever fate may come, and decide to trust the aging driver with his gin blossom face, and nicotine breath. About every hour our low-rent caravan makes a brief stop, and I decide to take at least one photograph at every town. Salem, Eugene, Medford?, Other less notable places until I trust our driver enough to fall asleep.