Something's Missing

I am rested after all the walking in the morning. My legs and feet have ceased their complaints finally. It's time to get out again. My husband rejoins me after being gone on business all day, declares his stomach empty, a need to fill it. I tell him about my walkabout, confident that I can suggest dinner at any number of places nearby. Paley's Place is so close that I can hear the kitchen clattering, and Marrakesh (Moroccan food) is about to float up into the night air on its own cloud of cumin, cardamom and lamb braising with onions.

No, they will not do tonight, he says. We ramble up Northrup to NW 23rd St and turn left toward the cafes I'd seen earlier. There are young people sitting, strolling, texting and chatting everywhere we look. Cars make their way hesitantly up the street, progress interrupted by jaywalkers and couples on the move. Pizza, burgers, pubs, more pizza (including Escape From New York, which would be my choice if you were to ask me, based on the way pizzas were getting slung about by young men with interesting haircuts) and finally Santa Fe Tacqueria. Bingo!

Santa Fe has a barn-like interior with spray-painted murals of heroic Aztecs frowning down on us from all the walls. The food crew are quick as cats. These are cheap eats, in distinct contrast to high-end Higgins the night before. It seems we shall average out our expenses to about mid-range after all. The place, empty when we arrive, quickly fills, the energy rising in the room along with the decibel level. It's a place that could just as easily push back the few middle tables, put on some salsa music and attract a partying crowd. I inhale a ceviche tostada and his carne asada burrito evaporates in mere minutes. We are happy.

Out into the night, we walk along and window shop, talk about the day, compare this place to Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and other college towns. It has all the usual high notes: pizza, coffee joints, pubs, New Age bookstores, high end corporate stores and foodie havens.

We surprise ourselves and begin to plan our breakfast destination. With full stomachs. At the end of the day. Right?

I continue to feel that I have not really discovered anything yet, except that I am interested in finding the heart and soul of Portland. It isn't here. There is a cushion of safety and connectedness here in the Northwest End that is pleasant for a vacation. I feel complacent here in this part of town, pretty as it is. I have found no local art yet and no evidence of anything distinctly different than other college towns with affluent students. Not complaining, mind you, but I am aware I am still hunting for something from the blood, sweat and tears of the place. Is it a reflection of my own inner search? Travel almost always is a parallel journey, the outer reflecting the inner one.

The Heart of San Juan Bautista

Mission San Juan Bautista State Historic Park is beautiful and so is its little town.  It's simple, old and lovely in a way that authentic old towns are.  If you look very closely; if you jab, poke and look look for flaws, you'll see lots of them.  But, the flaws, when you step back and look at the whole of it, become the exact thing you hope to find when you travel:  Authenticity.  

I don't want to see manufactured happiness or hear recorded messages.  I don't want to be what corporations have calculated I should be or see what they want me to see.  I want to see places like San Juan Bautista that have survived and endured all that its citizens and weather have conspired upon it, and I want to see the streaks of its tears, the laugh lines, the sagging roof lines or the gnarled old trees whose roots bend the sidewalks.  I want to see places that were built out of human necessity, not a corporate calculation to maximize profits and homogenize and neutralize my perceptions.  

San Juan Bautista is old and lumpy and sags at the corners.  Its slip is showing and its shoes are worn, but it is lovely and sweet and more than a little proud.  It surrounds on three sides an old Spanish mission built more than 200 years ago, and the little town moves to and from the mission grounds like the tide flows to and from our shore here in Pacific Grove.  They fill it with joy and sadness, anger and indignation.  As they should, the emotions and ideas of its people appear in its storefronts and along its streets in colors, textures and signs.  

What is most remarkable about this littlest of small old towns in busy, roaring, overpopulated California, is that it retains its charm and authentic character year after year.  Get to know it, and go with an open heart.  Be ready to meet it and sit with it awhile.  Give it time to slow you down to its pace and style.  You'll be the richer for it.