I See You

There once was an 100 year old cottage in an odd little city it had no electricity but it’s garden was pretty in that overgrown wild harmony a good gardener achieves it had roses and boulders bamboos and trees some piles of things not really of note and a family of feral cats living under a boat a rusty old car laid out like a carcass it was our block’s moss covered cottage surrounded by darkness it flied in the face of gentrification keeping it real in our inner zipcode it defied the persistent homogenization that for development is code yet our block’s moss covered cottage sat smack in our economy’s cross roads.

Our block has a lot of crows, 12 children, 2 affordable rentals, 4 black owned homes, 4 white owned homes, a first generation Vietnamese Mama and an immigrant Brazilian Mama that is me. As the bulldozers tear at the fabric of a place I don’t see development enhancing a diversity of people and business. We no longer live in a culture that respects the soul of a place, especially an urban place. But we can do the creative work of finding heart and forging connection.

My first urban love was São Paulo, Brazil. São Paulo’s a monster of a noisy city, Portland pales in comparison. I’ve inherited from my mother this social contract family theory that goes something like this: We all know not to go around punching each other in the face right? That’s no different than knowing your loud party will keep us up at night.

We start out on a gentrifying inner city block of Portland (OR). This is the same tale of many cities, through housing discrimination and redlining most African Americans moved to one of the few sections of the city that was open to black residents. As Portland grew, the inner city became more desirable. And that’s where our block is. A Cherokee farmer who had moved to Oregon once told me: we’re all settlers in someone else’s land.