The traffic on Burnside is, predictably, terrible. The two-to-four-lane road that bisects Portland between North and South has a number of signs meant to help open the way during rush hours- No Parking on the eastbound side between 7 and 9 am Monday through Friday, westbound side is no parking between 4 and 7 pm.

Signs communicate penalties, not rules. They don’t have alarm clocks attached to them, nor do hypercaffeinated parking enforcers go knocking on peoples doors at 6:50 in the morning to tell them to get their butts outside and move their cars, and they can’t possibly tow everyone… So we deal with it and some people get creative parking on the sidewalk in the driveways of shuttered businesses. A clever plan… as long as that sidewalk is not also a bus stop. Bus drivers in Portland will not hesitate to phone a make, model, and license plate into dispatch and let the might of Trimet’s pseudo-monopoly send a tow truck.

Portland- Don’t Make Us Make It A Problem, And It Won’t Be A Problem.

It’s early evening. A sunny afternoon has given way to warm gray cloud cover and a few raindrops have fallen, making the most desperate fresh-air fan wonder if it’s time to close the windows.

The problem with living in a basement apartment is that by the time rain could reach our windows, it’s likely hit a few other things first and lost its impact. It takes an honest-to-God monsoon to make Emily and I realize it’s raining outside before we happen to look out of our tiny windows at the right angle. Rain on a window or rooftop has been the most soothing and redeeming sound in the world for me for years, ever since a dark wet night outside of New York City when I was driving the four hours back to college in Connecticut.

It was dark, I was already tired, and the deluge had made the windshield wipers on my old Jeep an exercise in futility. Rather than wrap my car around a light pole or hurl myself down the side of the Saw Mill River Parkway, I decided to give up the ghost and pull off into a parking lot. I parked under a lamp post, set an alarm on my phone for 45 minutes, grabbed my old Boy Scout woven blanket from the back seat, and proceeded to have the best nap of my life while Nature vented its fury on my car roof.

I’ve scored a little patio two-top at Leikam and moved under cover when the first little drops appeared on my laptop. So far, the rain has barely rattled on the corrugated plastic awning. That’s fine, since I’m actively trying not to sleep or rest. It’s been a tiring day and I definitely dozed on the bus, but I swore I was going to write something today.

Write what you know.
Write what’s right in front of you.
Photographic writing- tell the picture, let a story develop on the way. You can’t do that kind of writing with your head down, earphones in, and ignoring everything around you. Kabbalah connects the aspect of Wisdom to Gratitude and Humility– knowing how much you don’t know, leaving yourself open to receive it, and being thankful for what comes. I’m no kind of luminary or sage, but that tracks in my experience.

Certain friends and family of ours have wondered, occasionally out loud and repeatedly, when we were “coming home”- moving back to the East Coast and settling down there. Our parents are getting on in years, Portland is expensive to live in, and Em and I have gained enough experience in our fields that we can find better jobs than we could before we made our big westward schlep.

Not too long ago, I would wave off the idea and even get a bit annoyed by it. It came across as patronizing, as though moving to Portland and restarting our careers was a “phase” we were going through, that it would end eventually and we’d come back when we’d had our fill. We were proud, we were stubborn, and insisted that even if moving across the country again was financially feasible for us (and it arguably still is not) we liked Portland and didn’t want to leave.

That’s still true. I still really like Portland. The question is whether Portland is good for us anymore. The Weird™️, “hyperliberal” city of foodie fame has been making moves to demonstrate that it truly is just like any other metropolis in the US. Portland is very much a welcoming city… as long as whatever you are doesn’t ruffle the feathers of others who were here first and is at least photogenic or profitable.

I’ve previously referred to Portland tongue-in-cheek as a place that is “weird on purpose,” versus places like Philadelphia that are weird in the Lovecraftian sense- they’ve existed so long and seen so much crazy shit, they can’t help but wear it all just under the surface. That characterization of Portland is closer to truth than I’d like to admit. Portland is also described as “a city that has figured out racial harmony as long as most of the population is White” and “a hyper-liberal city where gentrification has replaced black communities with Black Lives Matter signs.”

My point is that Portland wears its “progressivism” like a brand… and you don’t fuck with the messaging.

“Don’t make us make it a problem.”

Currently “Horseshoe Theory” is making a comeback. It’s the notion that the extreme ends of the political spectrum have more in common with each other than they do with the more moderate members of their half of the spectrum. In that way, Right and Left extend far far out from each other and the farther they go, the more they curve back toward each other. Like the old leftist joke goes, “If you go far enough left, you get your guns back.”

Where the two ends meet- where they have always met, with some changes of time and terminology- is hatred of Jews. That reality is very present in Portland and for my money, it doesn’t matter if the guy who comes to wreck the Holocaust museum, deface the Holocaust memorial, or harass Jewish people is wearing a MAGA hat, a white hood, a keffiyeh, or black bloc. The message and the hate is the same.

Then why stay? Why not pick up and move back East? My most recent trip home over New Year’s woke up a few fuzzy feelings in me. Being back in a community with a strong Jewish presence, full of sights and sounds and speech I recognized in my bones, and close to the soothing eternity of the sea put my heart at ease in a way that I hadn’t felt since 10/7. Why not finally just pull up stakes and go home?

Because fuck that. We’re not going anywhere.

A couple of my gentile friends have asked if I was even safe out here. The truth is, is anywhere safe? The answer is a resounding No. History tells us that assimilating ourselves for the sake of safety is a false promise. People who hate Jews, want to hate Jews, or want a reason to hate Jews, are going to hate Jews and find ways to act on their hate. It’s a situation I’ve brought up with Emily before. I said that she may very well be in danger staying with me, and that part of the reason I upped my life insurance policy is so that if anything did happen to me, she’d have resources to get somewhere safer and start again. After Bondi Beach, London, and Canada, it’s not off the table or inconceivable. To which my beloved wife said, “Fuck that. I’m staying, and I’m staying with you.”

Here in America, in 2026, I get to have that conversation with my wife and get an answer I’m both grateful and scared for.

If nowhere is really “safe,” then it doesn’t matter if we uproot our lives to last a little longer. All we’d do is cut ourselves off from the friends that still love us and the communities that will still have us. We have lives and careers here that would be hard to restart- even if doing another cross-country move wouldn’t be ruinously expensive. A lot of pain for a little unguaranteed temporary safety is not a good bargain.

Then why not just leave the country? The priorities of America’s current regime are making a lot of at-risk populations seek refuge or even asylum in other countries. If things are that bad, surely somewhere could take us in, right? I had one person pointedly ask me if it really wasn’t possible or if I just didn’t want to…

Bondi Beach answered that. London. Amsterdam. Montreal. Paris. Fleeing the country means all the negatives of a move East are compounded– assuming anyone would take us. Pastry chefs and piano teachers are not high on any countries sought-after trades for emigration. What’s more, it would involve hiding my Judaism and living in fear of being found out.

“So why not Israel? That’s what it’s for, isn’t it? Make Aliyah!”
A country run by a smarter version of Trump and the GOP but speaks Hebrew and is currently engaged in active hostilities. Better, but still not great.

At the end of it all, though, I’m staying because I’m not running. No one’s smashed my windows, vandalized my car, or picketed my work to get rid of its “Zios” yet. There’s always the possibility, but it hasn’t happened yet.

My wife and I still love this fucked up little city. I love my friends that are still here and I’m a part of the communities that will still have me. I love the moments of noisy rain that comfort me, and the locally-made beer that warms my belly while I write. While my ancestors absolutely did cut and run to survive, a number of them stayed, fought, and leaned into the Herschel aspects of our culture.

Let the terrorist fan club chant their ignorance and boil in their own stew. Same with the MAGA brigade. I wish them stubbed toes, traffic on Burnside, and skunked beer. I wish them confusion and the consequences of their own loud ignorance and hubris. We’ve ducked, dodged, subverted, and waited them out before. We’ll do it again.

Stay Classy,