On January 11th, 2016, I started a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to have some accountability. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Meditation for April 29th
Welcome to Portland, Oregon
Portland had long become a mecca for people to move to. In the early 1970s, the then-Gov. Of Oregon, Tom McCall said in an interview with CBS, “Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement. But for heaven’s sake, don’t come here to live.” Californians were moving in such big groups that it created unsustainable urban sprawl and pressure on local infrastructure.
This didn’t stop then, and a second wave of people started moving to Portland in the early 2000s, mostly young people looking to make the most of their dollars in terms of cost of living. A whole class of people who wanted to do hobbies full-time. This again created a huge burden on the local infrastructure and a loss of affordable housing.
These people moved to Portland expecting certain weather, attitudes, traffic, and cuisine. They were so disappointed that many locals wondered why they moved to Portland in the first place. We meditate on how we focus our expectations when we move somewhere different.
- It’s raining right now, and you hope it gets sunny soon. Well, you moved here, and it always rains here, so why would you expect it to be nice? It rains here. You moved here. Your expectations for a sunnier, warmer climate are unrealistic. Either move to a sunnier locale or lower your weather expectations. The last thing anyone needs to hear is that it isn’t always sunny.
- You can’t find a good taco to save your life? You moved to a place where tacos are not a regional highlight? We are known for salmon and mushrooms. We have rivers and damp, dark forests. Yes, you had very nice tacos where you’re from, but now you’ll just have to go without them because you looked at a fucking map and chose a place that doesn’t excel in taco construction.
- No one knows how to drive? Well, like yourself, a bunch of people moved here all at the same fucking time and are trying to drive along people who learned to drive all over the place but here at a place that said to itself many years ago, “Well, this is a rainy muddy miserable place with no jobs, so why would we build up the infrastructure for a bunch of sunny climate Mexican cuisine experts if it is so shitty here?” Then you decided that you needed to live like a bum and never grow up, and moved here at the same time everyone else did.
- You say people are so passive-aggressive here. Well, thank God someone said it. I never had the balls to say something so bold out loud. We are an old lumberjack town, and now we are a magnet to the country’s complete, frail, emotionally fragile youth. Since you moved here, you do the math. We have become a landing spot for the world’s most passive-aggressive people who want to learn how to serve food.
- Why isn’t there a good music scene here? Because no one wants to be creative anymore and rely on used-up old, safe music genres, and you can easily dress up for the theme, like metal and punk. Also, the adults ignore the kids by only having shows at bars so they can get plowed on shitty beer and whiskey and pretending that they’re 21 years old for thirty years. Portland had a good music scene, but like any oppressed youth culture, it got un-oppressed and then boring and not for the kids. If you’re in your thirties or up, have your kids, and stop taking rock and roll from the kids.
Prayer
Portlandia,
Not the TV show,
But the statue on that ugly building,
I don’t understand why people move somewhere,
And then complain about it,
Like one would complain about a shitty dead-end job.
Everyone I know has some huge complaint about where they live.
They sound like where they came from is so magical,
But here they are.
They aren’t there.
They are here.
They chose here.
A lot of people I know have no real reason why they moved here.
It was a list of cities that friends lived in.
It was here or Ashville, Olympia or Bloomington.
Just accept here for what it is.
I think that people are critical of here
Because they hate themselves
And they hate where they came from,
But pretending that they really love where they came from
Will cover up the fact that here didn’t fix them.
Amen.
Craft
Write twenty things you are grateful for where you live and post them here or in the comments section of Facebook. I want to hear what people like about where they live.
Goal
Love here or move back where you came from. Wherever you go, there you are.