I live and work
downtown. It's not San Francisco, it's not Manhattan. But it is
downtown, and that's saying something. It comes up in conversation
occasionally: “what part of town do you live,” “what
neighborhood is yours?” See, here in Portland, Oregon, people are
not only very proud of where they live, but their neighborhood gives
them a sense of identity. “I live downtown,” I say. In short, I
live exactly 13 blocks from where I sleep and I generally do not
stray far. “Wow,” is the general response. “How exciting.”
Truth is, I've
always lived downtown. Here, Denver, Mexico City, Tucson and my
brief tenure in New Orleans. I've always preferred to walk wherever
I go. So, downtown is convenient rather than exciting. In the past,
it was cheaper to live downtown. This is not the case anymore. In
fact, where we live now costs more than any place I've lived before.
High rent downtown. But I can walk everywhere.
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| Portland Building: a great place to camp |
Although I live in
a new building, the surrounding area is in flux. This part of
downtown was great when new and is now becoming slightly fallow.
It's not urban decay yet, but it is on the fast track. This along
with the massive homeless population really makes it seem like skid
row is quickly becoming the standard. It's even worse now that the
summer is coming on.
We have a camping
ban in Portland. That's right, the city does not allow “camping”
within city limits. Yet, there has been an encampment in front of
city hall for years. Somehow, being without home in Portland is
supposed to be a lofty goal and a reasonable ambition. I digress,
but the dichotomy of the place is really interesting. Moreover, my
place within all of it is interesting too. I live in an expensive
building and I work in a very expensive restaurant. I see wealth on
either side of my commute, but the commute itself is paltry,
impoverished, bordering on the absurd to say the least.
How do you expect
this to treat a writer? I mean, living in the thick of it like this?
Peter Benchley's book Jaws
had very little to do with the fish. It was all about class and
class warfare. John Steinbeck's Cannery Row
kind of romanticized homelessness with Mack and the boys. A writer
does use their surroundings as setting. It's a case of “write what
you know.” And if you don't believe me, I can tell you a great
deal about Haruki Murakami's Tokyo neighborhoods because he describes
them in great detail in every novel.
What
about the shutterbug? After all, this has been a conversation about
photography just as much as it has been about writing. What do you
think a camera can record? I find a great deal of beauty in urban
decay. For some reason, I kind of find beauty in the passed out, or
possibly dead, heroin junkies. It's the world that I live in. And
oddly enough, when I get to the restaurant, there is a certain level
of beauty in it too.
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| Wine decanter at Portland City Grill |
So,
I've been snapping photographs. I've been recording, in black and
white, images that will remain the same when my memory of the day
fades, warps and become nostalgia. Even if I'm not writing about the
neighborhood now, some day I might. If a picture is worth a thousand
words, is a thousand words with one picture?
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