Living Your Bliss

I visited Portland, Oregon earlier this week. It is one of my favorite towns because the city center is so walkable with an eclectic mix of shops and restaurants. Sometimes when I travel I am in a reflective mood and don’t go out of my way to find conversation. Other times, such as on this trip, I am more open. Here is what I learned from a few of people I met.

Sweets is a 64 year old man who wears a baseball cap and a Tommy Bahama shirt with holes over the right breast from seat belt rub. For 12 hours a day, he is harnessed to a taxi cab. He loves it. He has worked since he was nine, starting with a lawn care business in which he pulled a push mower behind his bicycle and charged $2.50 a yard. After graduating from college, he realized what he liked to do more than anything was drive. A taxi has been his office ever since⎯39 years later.

Most cabbies in the U.S say very little, even if English is their first language. Sweets is the exception. He begins talking the minute you sit down, starting with a friendly reminder to fasten your seatbelt. Then he rehearses about being a new man, now that he has discovered a new prescription drug to stabilize his heart condition. He says he hasn’t felt this good since the sixties. He talks about his children, grandchildren, and his ninety year old mom, who has lived with him since his wife died. He muses about college football⎯his other passion besides driving. He’s an Oregon Duck fan. Occasionally, he asks a question, but then seems to use the answer as an excuse to continue his ebullient monologue. I learned more about this man in the twenty minutes I rode with him than I know about some of my business partners after ten years of working together. When I mentioned I needed a ride to the airport later that afternoon, he agreed to return at the stated time. That isn’t unusual. What is remarkable is he actually came back and he was early.

When we reached the terminal, I shook his hand⎯another taxi first for me, but I felt I’d known him for so long it seemed like the natural thing to do. His parting advice was to tell my kids the nugget of wisdom he gleaned from a fortune cookie many years ago: Kindness is the only investment that never fails.

Sean Koreski is a clean shaven, twenty five year old who has the same determined look of a guy who has finished up an MBA and is ready to conquer the investment banking world. Except Sean has opted out of a traditional career. He is standing on the corner of Yamhill and Broadway, strumming a guitar and alternating between singing and creating an exotic melody from the Bolivian wood flutes that are positioned just below his mouth. The music has a tropical flare and reminds me of the marimba band my son Camden and I listened to many years ago on a plaza in Chiapas. When he finishes up the song I approach him to peruse the CD’s that are displayed in the guitar case at his feet. He is surprised I came up and browsed without first passing by three or four times. He says Portland ordinance only permits him to perform on the corner for an hour, but he has been there for three because an hour doesn’t give him enough time to make any money. Most people walk by numerous times before they get up the courage to buy a CD or put money in his jar. He thinks they are afraid he is going to accost them. Kevin learned to play the flute in Bolivia, after a friend invited him down. Now he tours with a band there, but returns up North to make money on the corner during tourist season. I buy a CD. The music is beautiful.

The owner of Vegetropolis has tattoos on her hands and arms that remind me of the marbled paper on the inside covers of 19th century books. She is in her late forties, which means she got the colorful tattoos well before they became popular again. They are the mark of a nonconformist.

Her restaurant has been open for eighteen months. She originally had a lunch cart, but her patrons were so enthusiastic about her vegetarian fare that she opened the restaurant on 4th near Stark. The hardest part about eating vegetarian is it takes so long to prepare the food, which is why a vegetarian restaurant is such a treat. This one is a gem. I order the almond pate on wheat bread. It is the best sandwich I have had in months.

Three Portland folks, all opting out of traditional careers, none making a ton of money, but all with the contented smiles of people who have found their passion, their bliss and are living it.