Embracing The Savage - Part 8
Sophie has said I can crash with some young people in a house in Portland. It's as you might expect from that show. Cats and coasters. The room I'm staying in has a mattress on the ground and not much else. It's normally used by couch-surfers they hose. The house is run by a brother-sister duo, but it's a free for all. It's unclear what my particular arrangement is here and Sophie doesn't do much to clarify. An interesting group of people keep showing up to hangout. A white lady talking about alternate communities, citizenships, black power etc. Typical Portland.
I had already been to this city in years past so spend time exploring old and new places. Sophie is also based here and I finally understand what she does. Volunteering and living with disabled people to ensure a smooth experience for them as they deal with city life. It's common for Europeans (especially Germans) to take a gap year after high school to volunteer in another country. A good idea, but somehow seems to fall flat into how much they will learn if it's only Europeans doing this kind of thing while the rest of world vies for survival.
It's strange to see an 18 year old in Sophie with so much certainty in her world view even though it's only a minority of people in the world who share that. She's also got something to do with a church. As does one of the other girls living in the house. I help them out selling Christmas trees.
We make a visit to White Salmon on the Washington and Oregon border among other places. We spent hours perched on a rock overlooking the river and goods trains. Sophie's one of the subjects in #GirlASeries - a hashtag I started on Instagram to share candid photos of women I meet.
It becomes a bit tense at the house as I'm not sure what Sophie had told them about me. In any case, being in a city is becoming a buzz-kill and I drag myself onto the cold winter highways and onto Bend. Basically, the new Portland. Microbreweries, coffeeshops, a different breed of hipsters and more outdoorsy. Why am I here? No, I haven't become a hipster nor am I on the hipster-trail. Rather, it's the much more uncool task of taking the GRE. I couldn't find a slot in Portland or Seattle. There isn't much in the way of preparation. The hostel I'm staying at is temporary home to people making a living in Bend and fridge magnets that bear cliches like "Not all who wander are lost". One such resident is a young woman who works at a brewery and is looking for a boyfriend. She's refreshingly open and honest, but does pull at the heart strings a bit. She's also my guide into the wild Oregon lands from which Bend is sprawling out.
It's not ideal conditions; being on a journey of the soul, to take the GRE, but I do. Three hours at the testing centre and I end up ranking in the 85th percentile. So, with that out of the way, I leave Bend and another girl behind to drive up to Crater Lake or as Klamath tribes call it, Giiwas - "a sacred place".
Crater Lake is a volcanic lake estimated to be more than 7500 years old and is the deepest in the United States. Even if it weren't for that, this is the most evocative place in the country and it's so wonder that it holds a great deal of significance to the Klamath people who have their own origin story for it. It remained known only to them until 1852. Eventually, after reneging on a treaty, giiwas become known as Crater Lake National Park.
Time, of course, is something that doesn't make sense in the wild as Loren Eiseley put it:
"...I lingered beside the stream with a growing restlessness. I had brought time in my perishable body into a place where, to all intents, it could not exist. I was moving in a realm outside of time and yet dragging time with me in an increasingly excruciating effort..."
The caldera is already covered in snow when I reach, so I wade in 2ft of it to get as close as possible to what would be a beautifully divine place to die.