2 Portland is not Paris

I live in Portland.

It’s a small city in the state of Oregon. There’s another small city also named Portland, but it’s on the other side of the country. That Portland is in the state of Maine. That Portland is closer to the ocean (the Atlantic Ocean). That Portland is smaller than my Portland.

That is what people tell me, anyway. I have not been there myself. I have no money. Don’t you remember? I am a poet, but no one wants to buy my book. So I have no money to go to Paris. I don’t even have enough money to go to Portland, Maine.

Portland, Oregon, however, is nice.

Well …

Portland, Oregon, is nice. That’s true. But that’s not the whole story. Portland, Oregon, is weird. And I’m not the only one to think that. Everyone says so! There are bumper stickers and murals and postcards. And they all say Keep Portland Weird!

“What makes it weird?” you might ask.

Ha! Where do I begin?

For one thing, there is the Unipiper. The Unipiper is a young man. He wears a mask like Darth Vader from the Star Wars movies. He plays the bagpipes while he rides a unicycle. If you don’t believe me, then Google it! People in Portland love the Unipiper and his unicycle.

Cycles of all kinds — unicycles, bicycles, motorcycles — are popular here in Portland. In the winter, thousands of people wear coats, hats, gloves, and raincoats to ride their bikes. They ride their bikes in the cold rain or even the snow. It’s called the “Worst Day of the Year Ride.” In the summer, even more people do the opposite. They don’t wear clothes at all! They ride their bikes naked at night in the “World Naked Bike Ride.”

Portland has hundreds of unusual food carts. One famous place for food sells doughnuts 24 hours a day. There’s also a museum of vacuum cleaners. People make boats out of giant pumpkins to float down the river. And Portland has the world’s smallest park. It is small even for me, a dog. It’s only two feet round, and it’s in the middle of a busy street!

Portland is a growing city. Many things are changing. For example, there are more and more people now. That means there is more and more traffic.

Our growing city is a lot like a growing teenager. Our body is changing. Our voice is changing. We think we’re getting smarter, but sometimes we still make poor choices.

Many people move to Portland. It’s their dream. The mountains are one hour east, and the ocean is one hour west. It’s easy to do what you want to do here. It’s easy to be who you want to be here. In other words, it’s easy to be weird here.

And I like weird. Weird is good. Portland is good. But Portland is not Paris.

I live with Liam and Oliver, my two dads. Well, they call themselves my two dads. They are humans. I am a dog. It doesn’t make much sense to me, either. But they love each other. And they love me. And I love them. We are a family.

Liam, Oliver, and I live in a large old house in the middle of the city. They love color, and our house is painted bright blue with orange doors and windows. All the other houses in the street are gray, grayer, very gray, and black. There is one white house, but it is on the corner. So I don’t think that it is part of our street. All the other houses are gray, grayer, very gray, and black. In other words, our house stands out.

Liam stands out, too. He also loves color. Liam owns an art gallery downtown. He sells very colorful art.

Sometimes Liam plays a joke. He stands in the window and does not move. Visitors stop by the window. They look at him carefully. First they look at his green hair and sometimes shake their heads.

“Only in Portland,” says a man in a cowboy hat. He shakes his head, and his cowboy hat nearly falls off.

“Look at his shoes!” says the cowboy’s daughter. Liam’s green shoes are the same color as his green hair.

“Which part of him is the art?” asks the cowboy.

“He is all art!” answers his daughter with an enormous smile.

The cowboy walks away. Liam winks at the girl. She blows kisses at him. That is the power of art, Liam thinks.

Meanwhile, Liam’s husband Oliver is only a few blocks away. He is at a protest with many people. They want to fight climate change. Many people stand together at Waterfront Park near the Willamette River.

They hold signs. The signs say things like: “The climate is changing; why aren’t you?” The people walk. They chant. They try to get the attention of other people. Oliver believes that most people care, but not enough.

“Everything is easier when you don’t care about things,” says Oliver. But he cares. And he worries — a lot. Oliver is not a dreamer like me. Oliver is not a free spirit like Liam. Oliver worries. He is a worrier. He worries about the past. He worries about the present. He worries about the future.

Liam and Oliver do not have any children. But they have me. And their eyes fill with water every time I talk about Paris. But what can I do? I am a wanderer. I am a dreamer. I am a poet. And I dream of wandering the streets of Paris as I write poetry.

Liam and Oliver almost understand this.

“It is not easy,” they say.

“You can visit me,” I suggest.

“We’re family,” they say. “How can you leave your family?”

That’s when I remember an old Chinese proverb: Parents must give their children two things: roots and wings.

Liam and Oliver have given me the roots. They have helped me to grow up. In fact, I have grown up faster than the city of Portland. I know what I want. The city is still deciding what it wants. I have roots, and I won’t forget them. I will always stay connected to the people I love and the things I believe. They helped me to become who I am today. I have the roots. Now I want the wings.