Day 10 in Portland, Oregon
The idea was officially born in a bathtub
It was a perpetual coin toss between Autumn and Spring every year. Which season would give me more long-lasting happiness — unperturbed by the seasonal change from freezing to warm; or from scalding hot to temperate? Spring meant the end of stifling snow boots. Autumn meant the beginning of Big Idea Season. It meant walking in the Japanese Garden a few minutes from the family home. The trees won eventually. The tapestry made by leaves of every single vivid and muted shade of red, orange, brown, ochre and yellow in the Faber Castell colored pencil palette won me over.
Thanksgiving weekend has always been a moral imperative for everyone in the family; no matter the divorces, nuptials, baptisms and gap years. Thanksgiving was always here, at the parents’. And every single big idea I have ever had in my entire life was formed while walking underneath the trees, and while crossing the Moon Bridge in the garden we all grew up knowing in Portland.
…Well at least that’s what I told Reuters when we discussed superfund budget cuts two Autumns ago. Two Autumns before that, in 2014, a replica of that lie was told to Aaron Sorkin during research prep for the subplot on climate change for HBO’s The Newsroom. My stories to both of them were predicated on a few lies. Just a few. One was that my…
