Me and De Daumier-Smith

It seems customary to pop open the champagne or at least break a bottle or something when beginning the maiden voyage of a vessel saturated with anticipation.
However seeing as how this is the first of the year I feel that bubbly would seem more than usual passé.
Thus I shall allow Coca-cola to suffice.

It's three weeks to the day until I depart Portland.
This city has meant such a great deal to me over the last several years.
It has been my escape, my home, my solace.
And now it will become something so much more definite, lasting:
My Foundation.

Walking the rainy sidewalks I feel a grand membership and familiarity.
I belong here. And I always will.
A piece of my heart, my soul even, shall forever be buried deep beneath the pavement and river clay of this quiet city.
But now it's time to uproot and find new fertile ground on which to alight and flourish.

I have never truly attempted this kind of adventure; this stringent return to my essential parts.
It's not to say that I haven't contemplated and fantasized so much as having never actually put the sole of my foot to the warmth of the ground and set out with no map to guide me.

It's thrilling. Elating. Terrifying.

And I am ready, perched to fly, to soar.

Let you never do with your right what you may with your left.