Ash Lind

There’s a sort of bone-deep tingle of dissonance that comes with leaving your ruby slippers by the wayside and finding yourself far from home. But as terrifying as it may be, for some reason or another, people find themselves pulling a Lewis and Clark and staking their claim in Oregon. Many have chucked the heels of the East Coast and taken that dreadfully long plane ride past the hills and lakes en route to Portland. Upon landing and taking those first few steps onto the massively popular PDX carpet, one gets a sense of a cultural divide that makes it abundantly clear that you’re not in metaphorical Kansas anymore. Here are a few things I’ve picked up along the way as a poor, wandering baby deer still trying to understand Portland's beer-sipping, coffee-brewing, house-blend music-listening and plaid-wearing ways. 1. Your fresh air is too much. The hacking and wheezing? That’s not allergies. That’s from years of being conditioned to breathe in fumes and smog. The clear, healthy overabundance of oxygen is too much for most city slickers' frail lungs to take. To help, bring me to the nearest trash receptacle or ashtray and let me breathe deep. I’ll be fine in no time. 2. The lack of taxes here has actually spoiled me. I recently took a trip to the East Coast and hadn’t realized how much I was actually spending until there was a burning hole in my pocket. How am I supposed to live outside Oregon when I’ve gotten so used to everything being exactly the price it says it is on the