Joe Woody's Inner Monologue

A few months ago, I moved 3000 miles away from home, from my apartment in metro New Jersey and my desk job in midtown Manhattan to the green hills and deep forests of Portland, Oregon.  Life couldn’t feel or look more different. Moving away from home has developed (or, more than likely, is still developing) a new perspective both internal within me and external to the rest of the world.

Having never lived more than 30 miles from where I grew up, home has always been about an hour drive away.  Friends and family were always just there.  Showing up at someone’s doorstep at 11 pm wasn’t something I would do, but it was something that I could if I really wanted to.  But now everyone is separated by a cell phone or computer screen, not to mention the unexpected difficulty of a 3-hour time difference.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not alone.  My girlfriend and I moved together.  At no point do I feel a sense of loneliness.  What I have is a feeling that I can only describe as missing.  I miss my friends and family, and that’s a feeling I’m not sure I have truly experienced.  Of course, I’ve missed someone if they’re on vacation, but that’s a temporary situation.  This is a much longer term situation (how much longer is to be determined, but safe to say likely a few years).

The important thing to note is that this hasn’t made me sad.  It’s actually made me grateful.  For example, I’ve always been notoriously bad at remembering birthdays.  But now I find myself remembering days in advance (which is quite helpful, considering it takes a week to get packages from one coast to the other).  This is going to be my first Thanksgiving away from home, but it just might be the first true time that I’m thankful for everyone in my life.

The other aspect of my perspective that has changed is a new found love and appreciation for nature.  I’ve always been more of an indoors type of guy.  Studying the piano, building websites, and playing video games tends to keep you inside most of the day.  This year I have seen a huge amount of the United States, including the Rockies, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and the Redwoods.  That doesn’t even mention my new home: Portland has the most trees of any US cities, and that means many, many parks and trails to hike (hiking has easily become my favorite hobby).  I used to be work a few blocks from Central Park in New York, but now that seems paltry in comparison to the luscious Forest Park or thick Tyron Creek State Park.

Sadly though, I have also seen devastation from the decades and centuries of logging, as well as the effects of global warming / climate change.  When you leave a protected area teeming with huge, beautiful trees and natural wildlife and see mountains and mountains completely bare, it is heartbreaking.  You could argue specifics of climate change, but you cannot argue with what you actually see.

I have always been on the environmental side of issues, but after seeing the breathtaking sights that this country has to offer, the environment is now near and dear to my heart.  The most important first step I could take is to no longer be a hypocrite.  This included selecting an environmentally-built apartment building, eating as organic as possible (which includes being vegetarian, something I will definitely discuss in another post), buying cleaning products that won’t harm water runoff, and paying a small amount extra in our energy bill to replace our consumption with renewal-able forms of power.  These are small steps, but at least they are steps in the right direction.

In closing, life is good.  I feel like I have the chance to actually take a deep breathe (which is probably a lot more healthy out there than it was in Jersey) and appreciate the things that life has to offer, which is something that I wouldn’t trade for anything.