Six Months in Oregon

The first picture I took after arriving in town: Astoria-Megler Bridge in the rain.

Six months ago I arrived in Astoria, Oregon: a quaint little town ripe with art, music, coffee, and seafood chowder.

It is here that I decided to push my boundaries and prove to myself, once again, that I can make a new life anywhere.

“What brought you to Astoria?” everyone asks, especially when you’re alone.

The simple answer is that after living in Colorado for 6 years, I knew that I yearned for the climate of the Pacific Northwest, and I found Astoria when I was traveling through in April of 2015. Almost two years later, I finally packed my dog in the car and drove from New Jersey to Oregon in the middle of the winter without a plan, except a tinge of hope that, maybe, I’ll learn something.

Now that I've been here, I spend a lot of time walking around with my dog. I fall in love with the buildings that look full of stories and ghosts. I wander around noticing the smells and flowers and details on the streets. I try all of the food and talk to everyone and get invited to barbecues and people’s houses for dinner. I am here saying “yes” and showing up. I’m taking risks and climbing mountains and drinking cocktails and making friends and art and crafts and hosting paint parties at the country club.

After six months in Astoria, what have I found? These are just some of the things that make my heart feel warm and full:

• Months and months of rain (not a joke)
• Long, summer days
• Long, winter nights
• The first uncomfortably, hot day wasn’t until August
• Good food
• Rain
• Barges floating on the river look like Christmas lights at night
• Every color flower you can imagine, all year round
• Houses perching on the hillside
• Fire sunrises
• Everyone loves my dog
• Sound of the waves breathing under the studio at RiverZen Yoga
• Sunday Market where the produce is fresh, local, and affordable
• So many artisans
• Progressive and liberal
• Art and music
• The Liberty Theater
• Proximity to the Pacific Ocean
• Columbia River views
• Rain
• Watching the sunset from the grass by the Astoria Column
• Contemplating life while looking at the world from the top of town
• The lines of the Astoria-Megler Bridge
• Feeling welcomed by strangers with relative ease
• Second Saturday Art Walk
• Unpredictable weather
• Sound of rushing water in the storm drains
• Barking sea lions
• Fearless deer
• Knit night
• Weekly trivia
• If you look at downtown with the right eyes, you can pretend to be in NYC
• The hiking
• The gigantic trees
• The neon green covering everything in the forest
• The slugs looks like giant pickles
• Smiles from strangers
• Pizza and beer at the Columbian Theater
• Weird decor of the VooDoo Room
• Topography
• Rain
• Paint parties
• Bookstores
• Video rental store
• Bowling alley
• Local shops selling my handmade things
• Threat of earthquakes and tsunamis
• Fresh and local seafood
• Astoria Rocks
• No sales tax in Oregon
• Appreciating the summer as a drastic contrast to the long, gray winter
• Don’t have to pump your own gas in Oregon
• Yummy tap water

I could probably go on and on, but I think you get the point. And despite all of this, I am in the beginning stages of drafting a plan for my departure.

If it’s so good here, then why go? That’s what a therapist will have to tell me... If I stayed in one place long enough to get to that point with a therapist, anyway.

Besides, nowhere is perfect. Astoria has its flaws, some of which include:

• Two hours to the airport
• Lack of diversity
• Limited dating options
• Loneliness - but that’s personal
• No Vietnamese restaurants
• No Asian grocery stores
• Disappointing yarn selection at the local Joann Fabric

So, this is where I went. Now you know.

I’m here. For now. I’m everywhere that I go.

I’m everywhere that I am. Until I’m not.

Arriving in Oregon.

One of my monthly paint parties at the Astoria Golf & Country Club

A painting I did which is hanging in the pub at Fort George Brewery.

Watching the sunset from the hill at the Astoria Column. 

Watching the sunset from WineKraft during Knit Night

Panorama from the hill at the Column

Sunrise from my porch.

Another sunset from WineKraft

Another sunrise from my porch.

Lucy posing at the Tulip Festival 

The beautiful Liberty Theater 

Astoria-Megler Bridge, the car that I don't know the history of, and Washington halfway hidden in the clouds in the distance.

Astoria's giant pickle-slugs (not real species name)

Some of my makings on display at Maiden Astoria

One of the many buildings in town that I have feelings for.

Another view of the river from Knit Night at WineKraft

Another building I love.

Trying new food: Dungeness Crab!

Lucy and I napping in the park in the summer.

Lucy and I watching the sunset.

Another sunset.

And another Lucy sunset.