AN APARTMENT IN PORTLAND
The rain didn't stop.
I stood outside the bus station with my bag on my shoulder and the city in front of me, and the rain coming down with the confident consistency of weather that had been doing this for a long time and intended to continue. People moved around me on the pavement — purposeful, umbrellaed, belonging here in the specific way of people who know where they are going and have somewhere to go.
I didn't have anywhere to go.
I'd Portland.
I picked up my bag.
I walked for forty minutes before I found the motel.
Not looking for anything specific — just moving, which felt more manageable than standing still, the forward motion of walking giving the appearance of direction even in the absence of one. I moved through streets I didn't know, past buildin
