dearest oregon friends....

Dearest, beloved Oregon friends,

As most of you know, I have been raised to be the strong, stubborn one. The older child of one incompetent parent and the other to an incredible someone who was deemed by our “just” justice system as someone overqualified for a job and therefore, a threat to either those millionaires in industry or those in academia with a different background other than the vacuum of the ivory tower, thus creating a different kind of dependent parent. In no way is this sympathy pleading but rather a clear perspective, not a proclamation, just a mere moment to tell you that I have had a couple of drinks tonight and would like to convey and confess a couple of feelings.

Again, as a preface to bold directness, I grew up in an environment that can be expressed best as a ‘competition to see who can be the rudest”. You show up at a coffee shop in NYC or to get a slice of pizza and you are forced to be confident in your adventure that someone will either tell you to go “fuck yourself”, which is met with shear appreciation as an exercise in ego-reduction or a dirty look, but never a postmodern (self-reflexive “overly self-conscious”) apprehension about ones position on the planet. Okay, fine, yes, this is a long preamble to let you know I am going to be absolutely direct in what I am going to say and forgive me if you read this in a sensitive moment where mediums such as email do not discriminate about the nature of time…

People travel……free trade agreements are signed…..countries are forced to privatize their welfare…..arms are sold….treatments for AIDS patents are sold…..everyone is struggling economically…..bread now costs $ 4…..you do not buy certain vegetables anymore for your dinner salad because a cucumber should never cost a dollar sixty-nine, GM and Chevron/Texaco killed ‘your’ electric car (check out the sexy EV-1, rent the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car”), you want to make a difference and help a few folks in the world, and are therefore, poor, because you are not making an easy buck in industry which is also deeply suffering. Napkins for Mc Donald’s are out of business or I would have my rent paid for this upcoming month. The average American possesses eleven (11) credit cards, and is living to their perceived lavish state……..respectful? No. But at least engaging with what they desire…..all because this ship is troubled……and this ship we are on will be sinking…

A mere eighty-five years after the independence of this country, a Civil War started. The Yankees valued farm machinery and development. New York was on its way to developing the first electric car while Boston was crammed to the rafters telling tales of narrowly averted migration disasters. The Confederates, shaped by their various historical contingencies, valued a social system in which who possessed the most black individuals was granted a higher social status in conjunction with one of the finest tools of the Industrial Revolution, the Cotton gin. England, our beloved colonial power – send King George home once and for all god damnit- demanded more output for their bourgeois costumes and we invented a machine that replaced our pragmatic, starch burlap with hand-picked, smoother cotton. Oregon, during this time, was far from joining the Union. The people did not participate in the Civil War nor were they even aware of its existence. The Native Americans were defending their precious, coveted homeland after seeing a ruthless, massive French escapade and the few Lewis and Clarks of the world were merely braving the land west of Wounded Knee, the last frontier.

While this is precisely what I love about Oregon: the youthful beauty. The Douglas firs that demand that not only are they older but still younger than you. The rivers flowing of spawning salmon that seem to travel to the ocean merely to transport nutrients back to the river for your unsoiled swim. The Cascades that divide the state into what will prosper and who will struggle. The magpie that flutters its blue wing if you are lucky and sings on Highway 58 as she cannot wait to get back to the high desert. The dewy grass that demands volleyball happens only on the pavement and frisbee only in the summer. The park that is almost safe enough for a female to fall asleep in. A great place to raise children, truly. However, not until you leave first. It must be known that history is being recurrently repeated under you noses. You are not included. If you research what historically was happening during the Civil War in Oregon, the only thing you can find is the nascent rivalry between two pathetic football teams. The state carries her pristine beauty for a reason; you are only affected but not a participant. You are a human being. You deeply feel the highest employment rate in the country; however, you do not partake.

Walden Pond is in Massachusetts, respectively, because he tried.

I, in a few ways regretfully, left this sanctuary for fear of my future life. There were times when I felt I could let my teeth rot out and no one would notice or rather shamelessly accept me, which is beautiful, but would only realistically bind me further. The people in Oregon are some of the most intelligent beings I have ever come across in my life. Having said that the Census Bureau or the Gallup Poll would classify and document you as mere countryside people. There is some pride to this. I understand. However, it contradicts what inspires you, motivates and drives you, which has everything to do with the globalized world you are interested in.

We, Americans, have recently been forced to fully understand that when our empire is rapidly deteriorating Argentina starts talking to the IMF again, Iceland begs them, South Korea contemplates their pile up of unsold Hyundai’s in a once vacant lot, imported French business owners ponder the green mold on their delectable cheeses, despite the debt we owe the Chinese government realizes they cannot survive if we do not buy the goods produced from the labor job we exported in the first place, and the Congolese security guard wonders why the last nine businessmen that privately flew into the closed Kigali airport had a European accent as the previous ten months he was forced to speak American English, and the Filipina forced into prostitution by poverty is tired of blatant patriarchal European and Asian men and wishes to meet an American or Canadian man who pretends better…

Okay…..you proved my point…..maybe I just need to come back…..this world, to quote Rumi, is a god damn “mudhole for donkeys”….but wouldn’t you rather make your own observations and opinions before you choose?

I love you all,

lauren