Shifting My Perspective

On the mundanity and newness of everyday views

The Marquam Bridge, not quite the view I describe below | Photo credit: The Oregonian

One of my favorite views in Portland is driving north across the Marquam Bridge, crossing the Willamette River where the downtown skyline emerges to my left and Mt. Hood stands in all her shining glory in the distance to my right. On especially clear days, I can see Mt. St. Helens straight ahead. The sunshine reflects off the water below, bringing the scene to a shimmering life. At sunset, it’s quieter, even when there’s traffic, the darkness somehow dimming the noise. The setting sun’s colors cascade across the surface of the river and throughout the skyline on either side, evoking a landscape painting worthy of a museum.

Whenever I found myself behind the wheel in this exact spot, my heart would suddenly swell with love and pride for Portland, the city that I have called home for more than 11 years now.

Only recently did it dawn on me that I no longer have this feeling. Ever since I started working for Nike nearly four years ago and making the long drive (15 miles one way) from the Westside to the Eastside multiple times a week, the beauty of the scenery has been lost on me. Rather than this bridge crossing feeling majestic, it’s instead become a grueling crawl across the overpass. I no longer see the beauty, instead I see the taillights in front of me, the inefficient merges, the semi-trucks barreling past like they own the place. On some days I see Mt. Hood, of course—she’s hard to ignore—but do I really see her like I did on this bridge crossing in years past?

It made me sad when I realized I now take for granted the view that used to be my favorite.

How can I take that back? I thought to myself.

When Pete and I returned home from a week in Palm Springs (our babymoon!) a month ago, we were greeted with warm, sunny weather when our feet touched PDX soil, much to my pleasant surprise. It was just the energetic boost I needed to inspire me to clean off our patio furniture and prepare it for the spring and summer seasons.

Over the winter our neighbor’s tree blew down in a windstorm, taking our back fence with it (but fortunately saving our siding and bedroom window). It was annoying to deal with at first, since the neighbors are renters and I had to contact their property management company to get it taken care of. Fortunately they were easy to work with and removed the tree and repaired the fence at no cost to us. Once the tree was gone, it dawned on me what a different view we now had.

The small back patio, previously enclosed by a towering tree overgrown with ivy, was a respite, a little cocoon of greenery that shielded us in the hot months and gave the illusion of privacy in a dense urban living environment.

Whenever I looked out my bedroom window directly upstairs, the tree waved hello at me, its presence making me feel like I lived in a grown-up treehouse.

Never mind the bajillion spiders that came with the territory—only later did it occur to me that the reason we’d seen an increase in so many spiders the past couple summers might’ve been due to the fact that the ivy and tree held in moisture, a perfect habitat for these eight-legged creatures.

Now, the patio felt awkwardly exposed, like when a man accidentally messes up his facial hair while shaving and the only way to fix it is to strip his whole face bare. The tree that shielded us from our neighbors left a jarring feeling in its absence.

But this new bareness has brought with it a whole new perspective. The morning sun that I thought was strong before now beats through tenfold. A surprising gift, it turns out, because I can sit out here sans jacket with my coffee on a sunny but chilly spring morning, the warmth of the sun’s rays strong enough to combat the temperature. I’ve started the last few Friday mornings out here this way and while I have no scientific evidence to show it, I am confident that a morning boost of Vitamin D accompanied with a journal and nature’s soundtrack is good for the soul.

It feels especially special when a hummingbird pays me a visit. No matter how engrossed in my pages I may be, the buzzing sound of a hummer’s wings instantly catches my attention. I look up, my eyes scanning the view in front of me until I lay eyes on it.

Not only did I clean the patio furniture, I finally cleaned and refilled my beloved hummingbird feeder that I uncharacteristically neglected for the majority of the past six months. So when I heard and saw my first hummer visiting our patio in months, I was delighted. I fear that when I neglect to feed them, they’ll never come back, but without fail, every time I put that feeder back out, no matter how long it’s been, they return. I love the reliability of it. I wonder if they sense any recognition when they visit the same feeders or bunches of flowers, or if it’s all the same to them. I’d like to believe it’s the former; to think each feeder is a unique marker on their mental map makes it feel personal, like we have a relationship that matters.

Hummingbirds, to me, are a nudge to pay attention. To slow down and notice. To just be.

And now I see a massive evergreen tree in the distance that I couldn’t see before our neighbor’s tree fell—it appears windblown, bent with resisting the effort of many a storm, unlike its neighbors. To me, it looks like a rabbit’s head looking up to the north. Whenever I peek out our east-facing windows, I check for Mr. Rabbit. Still there, I think to myself, noting that it wasn’t a one-time optical illusion. He’s still a rabbit! (When sharing this observation with Pete, he commented that it looked like the moose from Rocky and Bullwinkle.)

Do you see a rabbit or moose?

A couple weekends ago, despite the chill and rain, we bought flowers at Home Depot to enliven the back porch a bit more, fully usher it into spring. Little white alyssums for the table, and a colorful rainbow of various annuals in a hanging basket.

I’m sitting on our patio as I write this, the breeze warm enough to comfort me, blowing the neighbor’s new wind chime I hadn’t noticed before, cawing crows and chirping birds in the distance, my ear trained to listen to them more than the passing cars nearby. (Not trained enough to recognize which birds, but maybe I’ll get there one day!)

Just as I’m putting the finishing touches on this draft, I hear the unmistakable buzz of hummingbird wings and my perspective shifts.

The universe smiles knowingly at me.

A Note on My Sudden Disappearance

As you can imagine, life preparing to become a parent for the first time—not to mention spending every minute of every day growing a human—can become quite busy and overwhelming. I officially hit my third trimester a few weeks ago and swear that the tiredness and bodily sensations came back at the same time. All in all, things are going great and I’m still making time for my writing life in other ways (i.e. my monthly writing group + a writing project I’m working on). But needless to say, I’ve unintentionally let my Substack fall to the wayside and writing these days feels a bit more like a Herculean effort as a result. (I actually drafted this essay a couple weeks ago [see, I still care about writing!!], but didn’t have the energy to edit it until now.)

I have no idea how this will change once baby girl arrives; only that I intend to keep writing, in whatever form and fashion that may be. With the roughly two months I have left until her arrival, I’m going to do my best to keep posting here and reengage the muscle I’ve let atrophy a bit. If you’ve wondered where I’ve been this past month, and/or if you’re here now and reading this, thank you for being here! 💗

P.S. The title of this author’s note is a nod to one of Alison Espach’s earlier novels, which I’m curious about since I loved The Wedding People. Have you read it?? If so, let me know what you thought!