Starlight

Am back in Portland. Feels oddly like coming "home" -- it's all relative, I guess... had a lovely time in Vancouver with my online pals. Was in good rhythm with Katie -- who else would march briskly across a whole city with me, circling Yaletown for an hour before finding it, and never complain about it? We were well matched for walking and talking -- and then dinner with Janice and Bonne was just lovely. What a great little group of smart, accomplished, warm, gorgeous women -- it was a great treat.

As always, it really made me reflect on how odd this little online friendship thing can be. Posting with someone in online boards gives as good a portrait of "who they are" as any corporeal space experience I've had -- interacting on forums mirrors how people interact face to face in some remarkable ways. I've never been truly surprised by anyone I've met in real life after getting to know them online -- really provokes lots of questions about how we enact ourselves, and how some qualities are approximated in different ways in different spaces, but they still add up to the same overall picture. You don't necessarily know the timbre of someone's voice, or their pace of speaking, or the warmth of a smile -- but you know what's going to invoke that smile or make them snort with derision. The number of people I know who've met romantic partners online is testament to the potential intimacy of this way of relating.

And... sometimes I worry about the dispersion of self that is made in such a networked, mediated life. Digital space is as "legitimate" a realm to meet people in as any other space -- and I have such a diversity of people I've connected to because of my online world, such experiences (the Greeley Stampede, for example) I would have never otherwise had. There's also a mutual consent factor to the online world that creates an interesting kind of relational responsibility -- there is a huge difference between middle of the night gut spillage and self-doubt that is expressed online, where anyone who happens to be around, up and willing to participate in the conversation can respond -- and, say, tearfully calling a friend at midnight.

At the same time, I think there is a sometimes seductive detachment to the distance of that space, where the optional aspects of it create fragmentation. The connection *is* pretty much possible completely on your own terms, without having to deal with corporeal irritants or the mutual modulation of energy and space. I think having a lot of connections online (in fora and email) allows both best self (patience, attentiveness, depth of conversation) and a potential disengagement, a kind of a-responsibility, in some ways. Of course, a voice is a voice and you are going to respond to a friend's joyful announcement or depths of sorrow -- but there's also a kind of smooth polishing off of the edges possible that could allow us -- me -- to float above the messy space of intimate coordination. Not sure of the implications of this pondering. Just... pondering.

So... coming back from my little real world encounter with my online world people, I disembarked from the LRT from the airport right into crowds lining the streets of Portland for some festival. Chairs all set up along the road, families doing the so-American tailgate thing with some skill. Little girls marking off Wade Family zones with chalk, kids and parents playing frisbee and football in the road, little barbecues and picnics all set up. Jesus people wandering up and down the street purveying their messages. Apparently there's some Rose festival this week, and this 5K run and Starlight Parade starts it off.

I wandered down to a little tacqueria in the middle of the route and had a chicken burrito and a beer while watching the scene. Portlanders are friendly -- one family invited me to watch with them, having staked out space with an extra chair, just in case. Instead, I perched at the little table along the window in the restaurant and chatted with a nice young couple from Ithaca, NY (who, it turns out, grew up near Detroit) for over an hour, about life and work and the west coast and Detroit and race and Portland and running. We watched the 5K, with the fun costumes and toiling exhuberant people, and the beginning of the parade. I'd had enough festivity, so I went home, struck by how relaxed and happy everyone was. Just the right size of crowd for everyone to have space but a critical mass of energy. Portland really does seem to be this magical Goldilocks zone of "just-right-ness".

Now, some sleep, and some work before I head off to the coast on Monday with Jane and Don. I'm happy to be back here.