Hello friends, greetings from the town of Portland, Oregon. Last Saturday, I arrived sick and injured. The entire drive from Seattle to Portland was spent with a bucket of ice cold water between my legs on the floor in the passenger side. Every 5-1o minutes I would plunge my hand into the cold water until the pain dissipated. I bet you are wondering why I would do such a thing. In pacific northwest standards, it was a hot day, about 80 degrees Fahrenheit. But nope, that was not the reason. The morning of my move, I woke up extremely snotty and dehydrated, and decided to make some tea. While pouring the boiling hot water from the kettle into the mug, the water boiled over the mug and onto the hand that was holding the mug. The human body is so intelligent when it comes to fight or flight responses to sensations. Within a matter of seconds my hand was under running cold water. This burn was like none I had ever had. The redness spread across the top of my hand, covering all knuckles and the bottom halves of the fingers.
My first week of living in Portland has been quite a week. It seems as though I've left Seattle months ago. Graduate school began on Monday. I am training to be an Art Therapist Counselor. In addition to the 5 courses I am taking, I have also started working at a homeless shelter for the mentally ill. I will be facilitating art groups there as part of my fieldwork. In addition to mental illness, many of the residents there also have substance abuse problems.
All of my classes are fascinating and intense. For 5 classes, I was required to purchase 15 books. There are about 20-25 chapters per week of reading. Psychopathology, Intro to Art Therapy, Theories of Counseling, Child Development, and Art Therapy Counseling Techniques are the courses. In addition to those we have a Fieldwork Seminar where we discuss our various fieldwork sites and try out different art activities to test the effectiveness of the projects and materials with the different client populations. There are about 20 students in my cohort, 95% female. Most of us are placed at different sites, with varying populations: children, adolescents, adults and elderly. I am excited to be in a program, where people are excited to be there and learn. It's quite refreshing.
My apartment here in the southeast region of Portland is spacious and wonderful. My bicycle finally has her own room! She is really happy to be in Portland, socializing with all of the other bikes in the neighborhood. If you don't know, Portland is, in my opinion, the bike-FRIENDLIEST city in this country. My street alone is often described as a bike super highway.
We have been so lucky to be able to go on plenty of rides this week, accompanied by temperatures in the 80's and sunny skies.
After leaving my band behind in Seattle, in hopes to continue a long distance band relationship, I have started busking(aka. playing on the street) for extra cash. Wednesday I played fiddle for an hour in front of Whole Foods. That experience was not so lucrative, but I did get a solid hour of practicing done in the sun. Yesterday, I went to my favorite farmers market, PSU, downtown. I spent about an hour and a half playing banjo, harmonica and singing for the people at the market. I did make some money, which I then took over to the vendors to buy greens. Because it was the closing time, I got an extra bunch of Escarole( a bitter, leafy lettuce) and some beet greens thrown in my bag, at no extra charge. Now I have so many greens, I have been having them with every meal.
My second bunch of escarole. Will eat salad! Yum!