Some Distant Notion

Visiting Eugene for the First Time in Eight Years

I came to Eugene unsettled. I was eighteen. My sibling and dad dropped me off at the new place I would soon be calling home with little idea of what I was doing there, beyond just getting away from my hometown. I had two roommates at the time, Maggie and Josh. Josh was sleeping on the couch, figuring out his next move as a recent University of Oregon graduate. Maggie was just graduating college and finishing up her requirements at summer school. And then there was me—a skinny little kid who wasn’t sure if he wanted to go to school, but only was certain that he wanted to write as much as he possibly could. 

Everyone else, my actual roommates, were away for the summer—in Portland, Le Grande, Los Angeles. I didn’t know these people at all, but they all knew my friend Noah. I was taking Noah’s room in his old house, and they were all kindly excited to meet me—this kid from Noah’s childhood in California that they knew little about. Many of them had already met my older siblings, but beyond that, they had no idea who I was. And I was right there with them. I didn’t know who I was, why I was there, and even if I really would be staying.

As my sibling and dad left, I could feel an eerie distance from me and home. I never really traveled when I was little. On the rare occasion we’d visit my Dad’s hometown of Vancouver, Canada, or my Mom’s parents in LA, but that was it. Mostly I was a hometown kid in San Anselmo and Fairfax, spending the long summer breaks at home, playing in creeks and trails, or skating at the high school.

In those first weeks I could feel the vastness of this new town, how small I was compared to the grids of the streets of Eugene, the isolation of not knowing a single person in town at the moment. I could feel the near four hundred miles between myself and what I’d always known growing up. 

/

On the way into Eugene, I hit up my friend Stephen. I was a day earlier than I expected getting to Eugene. I had exhausted the research I could do on the coast at that time and the cold rain and wind was not exactly inviting for another evening’s stay. I told Stephen I’d be in town, just looking around before finding a place I had heard about just outside of Eugene. 

Stephen has been living in Eugene now for nearly a decade, but we grew up in Marin, went to high school together. He came up there a little after me. He stayed and went to UO, and started an incredible sludge metal band called Milton. Things are good for him up there. 

He immediately texted and said that he could hang after work. He sent me his address. I told him to text me when he was free.

I got into Eugene from the West side and Junction city, taking 7th ave into downtown. Once I realized where I was I turned right onto a side street I used to bike all the time in the Jefferson Westside Neighborhood. I saw the tall brick church of my old neighborhood and a rush of nostalgia, some frantic outcropping of memories, came into view and forced me into remembrance. At that moment I remembered the feeling of what it was like to be in this town. I was on eighth street, headed toward Van Buren, my old corner. I could picture all of us biking down the street, someone blasting a boom box. I remember someone lighting firecrackers at the church one night. I could feel the soft breeze of a Eugene fall.

The streets here were surprisingly larger than I remembered. The big leaf maples were so large and hung over the dirty and free-pile-filled street like archways. I pulled over to the side of the road next to the corner store I used to frequent—New Frontier Market. 

My friend used to work there and they would always let me buy beer even though I was eighteen and looked to be about fifteen at the time. Besides some benches and a new coat of paint, the place looked basically the same. But when I walked in there was no music, and a pissed off sales clerk. Something had changed. It still smelled like a health food store—it had its unique combination of natural food store mixed with corner shop—one of the only places I’ve seen where you can buy bulk goods along with a forty, a Reese's bar, and freshly brewed organic and locally roasted coffee. And although all that was still the same, it felt different. Stephen later told me that they have new owners, that it really just isn’t the same vibe anymore.

I bought a coconut water and left. 

I started to drive around two  to see what was up. As I headed east, toward University of Oregon, I kept remembering little things, streets, small moments in the time I had there that really changed me. And as I made it closer to the river, it really started to strike me just how little had changed here. I was seeing old stores shut down, but the buildings were the same. People still rode their bikes to a lot of places. Eugene Jeans, the local thrift shop, was still kicking. Eugene, essentially, was the same. And while eighth street felt so large, the rest of the town was all scrunched together. Old cafes I loved and thought were so far away I realized were only a ten block walk from my old home. Even the last place I lived in was only a short walk to downtown. Eugene was the same, it just looked so much smaller now. 

Stephen hit me up and I got to his house. We ended up chatting a bit, then decided to get some beers and head to Mount Pisgah and drink by the river. I used to bike to the Willamette river in town to drink, and never really spent time in Pisgah. We drove out, mostly with me reminiscing about our time in Eugene together, about Stpehen’s band. He sounded shocked that it had already been nine years that he’d been in Eugene. He didn’t expect it to happen this way, being here so long, but here he was, hanging in the same spots he used to when we were only just out of high school. I reminded him how much he had changed in all that time though. He reminded me that I, just before leaving, warned him to get out of Eugene quickly, that it was a vortex. At the time, he said he was going to be here for a couple more years, maybe move back to the Bay or Portland. I forgot I used to say that about Eugene. But it was true then.

We kept drinking as the sun set, having way more beers than either of us expected. We spent the rest of the night sharing music, him sharing new demos, and me showing him other friend’s stuff. We were on a rant about art, about how to make it and keep yourself interested—the corny little romantic ramblings you go on when you're with someone who makes you feel inspired. He’s a quiet maker, Stephen, but still someone who really can’t stop making things. Though I’m not sure he’d cosign that sentence, I do see it as true. And Eugene seems like a good place for it. There’s a good music scene. You can walk everywhere, and it’s quiet. A good place to be in place. A good place to be in order to make things in the boredom of cold and cloudy winters. But it’s no longer the place for me, no longer home. I’ve moved to too many places. And yet, here we were, two skinny dudes ranting together like we knew anything about art, far away from where we’d come from.