This Week in Laundry

Tech, Travel, Design, and Domestics.

Portland’s the old Portland

Living: airbnb in West End, Portland, Maine

Working: Peloton Labs, Portland

Laundry: Soap Bubble Laundromat, Portland

This week in Laundry I relax in Portland.

Fall comes in roaring strong. From the low nineties and humid in Pittsburgh, to a hot and humid night in Hekimer NY in my bivy at a KOA. And then the breath of the earth suddenly transforms at the hands of early morning rains. I wake to clear brisk air by the stream under hills. The lush green foliage sea in the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire shyly begin their blush of yellow, hints of red.

The 100 mile view atop Hogback Mountain in Vermont

The 100 mile view atop Hogback Mountain in Vermont

It continues on to the coast of Maine. To the Atlantic shore. To the Casco bay. Cool nights. Warm days. Fresh sea air. The world is transformed.

A young woman sits the sidewalk outside this week’s laundromat. Leans against the window – book in hand. Words etched into the window’s glass organize to let you know this business is owned and operated by a former US Armed Forces member. On the other side of that piece of glass a couple passes washing time by coloring in their adult coloring books. And somewhere further still inside I load a washer with the contents of my bag by the darklight glow of an Elvis bust lamp.

Viva Las Lavanderías

Viva Las Lavanderías

It could not be more clear. I’ve entered another world. I’m in Portland, Maine.

Why thank you. Thank you very much.

Why thank you. Thank you very much.

I had not quite expected Portland to be so different. Remarkably, though on a completely different coast – that older eastern Atlantic coast – I can’t help but remember Seattle. Maybe that’s to do with a common coastal culture – the parade of Subarus crowned with kayaks, the ferries out to the islands, the rich food culture. While very distinct, much smaller, and far less technology oriented, Portland possesses all these traces. Traces of the weird and strange that remind me of Austin. Traces of the Pacific Northwest, in all its progressive lenses and outdoor focus.

the Fun Box Monster Emporium. Keep Portland weird also.

the Fun Box Monster Emporium. Keep Portland weird also.

And while Austin shoots up in metro size, quickly approaching that hipster mecca, Portland of the West, Portland Maine maintains a metropolitan population size hovering at half a million.

That incubates the metro’s size to one smaller than that of Madison, WI. Which is my closest estimation in cultural texture – if nothing else from the restaurant per capita density, liberal leanings, and the general size. And one larger than that of Asheville, NC (a future destination). It keeps it from feeling overwhelming. And keeps the driving easy.

Maybe it’s because Portland’s the largest metro in a state that’s so progressive the speed limits are posted in kilometers. Maybe it’s MECA – the Maine college of art situated in the central congress area. Maybe it’s because Maine’s the whitest state in America. Maybe it’s my first taste of cool weather since the high altitudes of northern Bozeman, MT. Or maybe it’s because it’s a coastal settlement, not too large or too small, situated far north on the Atlantic shoreline – subject to warm temperate summers – and winters full of nor’easters. But there’s a layer of calm cool that seems to coat the buildings, sidewalks, ramen shops and co-ops.

It puts me at ease. It gives me a sense of grounding I’ve not felt since Seattle. And unlike Seattle, it’s not rain that’s put me there – because there’s been nothing but sunshine so far since climbing out of that KOA in Herkimer, NY and making my way west across the gorgeous, rugged terrain of Vermont and New Hampshire.

And so as I settle in to town – and this place feels much more a town than a city – I’m overcome with the desire to simply relax – to take a breath. To take in the fresh sea air. Just for the week. And then, after that moment, move on.

Portland City Hall

Portland City Hall

As I take that moment, take that breath, of cool seaside air, I can’t help but wonder, after tasting yet again a new variant of American culture, why do people chose to live where they live?

Is it mostly where they find work? Or is it mostly where they grew up? Do they want to be close to family, or do they want to be close to vibrant momentum? Is it proximity to the bars, or to grandma and grandpa (if and when the children come)?

What shapes the culture in these places? What shapes those places of liberal culture? The universities seem a strong influence – whether that’s the bay area born from Stanford and Berkeley, or Pittsburgh with Carnegie Mellon, or Madison and Ann Arbor with their high ranking public schools, or Boulder, CO grown up around the University of Colorado.

And then there’s Seattle. And Portland – both seem slightly less the result of universities, and slightly more the result of coastal life in the north.

On the other hand – what breeds the culture of those places with more conservative dispositions? Areas in the deep south? Pockets of Oklahoma, and Texas?

And I ask that question less in terms of politics – because urban areas will always benefit more from liberal programs that lean toward asset reallocation – but in terms of the cultures that evolve in these areas. Which in turn attract people to those areas who are, act, and feel like minded to those cultures. And so they build.

I recall being in Denver, at the Mini Maker Faire, talking to someone from Boulder about Boulder. She mentioned a comment from a Boulder native – about the comfort of being around like-minded people. I agree – it’s satisfying to be around like-minded people. The comfort in confirmation of your own beliefs and lifestyle – the lack of conflict and confrontation against your own life views and ways of living. The lack of challenge. It makes things very easy.

But I agree with my friend – who followed up this native’s reflection with her own opinion – challenge is important. It’s important to meet our own ideas with conflict. It’s important to challenge them. Not just acknowledge the differences, but truly challenge them by understanding and entertaining those viewpoints which are counter to our own. Yes it’s uncomfortable. Yes it’s exhausting. But it’s also important. It’s important to see the world through other people’s eyes – through different beliefs, different regional cultures, different racial cultures, and different classes and the cultures born from those classes.

America operates in a caste system, based on classes. It always has. And you can’t really know America until you know all the people in it. You can’t know it ’till you see it through everyone’s eyes – from the affluent beach homes in north county San Diego, to the noise pop diy musicians in Seattle, to the transforming racial makeup of the Maine Coast. You can’t know it until you see it from the frustration of the regulation restricted entrepreneurs, and from the starvation of the homeless, camping out in parks or public campsites, hitchhiking out of town where they found work for the day.

From the past generation of steel workers, long out of work in Pittsburgh, to the current generation of tech elite amassed in Silicon Valley, Seattle, New York, and other various tech hubs throughout the US. These are all Americans – and if not Americans themselves, then the companies that give them work, or do not give them work. The exchanges that trade those company’s stocks. The investors of Oil Companies. The oil companies themselves, that build pipelines to span the country. The Native Americans that protest the desecration of their burial sites razed by those pipelines. They are all America. And you can’t know America, without seeing America through each their eyes.

Also Consider the Lobster. Empty traps on the old port shore.

Also Consider the Lobster. Empty traps on the old port shore.

And yes, even the people of this laundromat. The people of Portland, Maine. They are Americans too. When I look through their eyes, I see them much as myself – engaged in that necessary chore. Counting their coins. Counting down clocks. Watching timers expire. Unpacking, packing, folding. Coming in. Getting done. Moving on.

This is the pulse of my life. I live it with them. And in some small piece, they live it with me. In our shared hour of community here at the laundromat.

And as with every week, the timer on the dryer finds its way to zero. My cycle completes. My clothes await rolling. Packing. Together we move on.

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