The layout of of my new room is exactly the same as a room I lived in four years ago.

I’ve never lived in one city for more than five years at a stretch.  Since moving to Portland in  2006, I’ve lived in six different rooms.  I’ve stayed in SE while bouncing around like a pinball.  Eastmoreland, Powell, Belmont.

Some of the objects around me stay the same, particularly books and clothes and taxidermied alligator heads, but most of them change.  I believe in traveling light.  I can’t mark time with objects, even the clock radios and broken wrist watches.

I mark time with space.

There will always be that year in the dorms, those two years in The Wimbledons, that summer half out, a year in the RCAs, the summer on Glenwood, a year on Powell next to the Chinese herbalist.  This will always be the summer I lived on Belmont.

My five years are nearly up.  Next year will be the Austin year, or the Chicago year, or the Andover year.  I don’t know where there is yet.  I just know it won’t be here.