stumptown diaries, one: the curious girl under glass by jen elliot

Each month, we plan on bringing you an installment of Stumptown, told from the perspective of some of Portland's finest non-existent folks.
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Stumptown Diary One: The Curious Girl Under Glass by Jen Elliot
“Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the Summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.” - Pierre Teilhard de Charden’s “Omega Point”, which could have just as easily been written about a most beloved city in the Pacific Northwest-- Stumptown. 

When flying into Portland’s International Airport, there are two things you can be certain of: 1. That the air around you will generally be at least 20 degrees cooler than the location you departed from, and 2. That you will feel as if you have just entered a 1980’s carpeted shopping mall and that you have somehow beaten the time-space continuum by traveling backwards rather than forwards. As humans, we tend to believe that time is a concrete ideal; a tangible reality that brings forth structural significance in our daily living. But when you step off that plane for the first time (or the second, or the last), you will feel as if you are partaking in just a fraction of time, as the world spins effortlessly on its axis in its rapid movement.

Sometimes I feel like I am always running away from something. I just can’t seem to escape the complexities of human relationships that bring me to their bidding. I want to believe I can transcend these things; to rise above the fallacies of temporal cogency that time and time again tends to test my very will. The reality of this is never simplistic in assumption; there is always room for blundering introversion and despicable controversy.