There’s something in the air

Portland is such a nice place to live, what with the emphasis on sustainability, green living, public transportation, not to mention all of the cool outdoorsy things right in front of you like the Willamette river, the hiking trails in Forest Park, the Columbia Gorge a short 30 minutes east of the city.

Even the weather is cooperating with a beautiful sunny 75 degree day forecast, finally here in the middle of June.

So you can imagine my joy when a city and an area that has already given me so much to be grateful for went that extra step and offered up a free buzz while walking to work.

A new MAX line has been in construction along 5th and 6th streets for the past year. Since my office is on 5th, I’ve had a ring side seat as the street was torn up and rebuilt with shiny new rail lines, the curbs reshaped and the intersections redone with spiffy new brick work in an oh so Urban chic herringbone pattern.

Last week they finished installing the pole supports for the power lines and stringing those lines. This week, they’ve been painting those poles a nice, unobtrusive institutional gray. You can smell it from two blocks away. It’s some sort of industrial strength paint designed to bond with metal. The first whiffs don’t really do more than warn you of what to expect but as you walk further into the invisible zone around a pole, your nose wants to pack its bags and run home to momma, without so much as a forwarding address. But you press on because you’re already committed to heading in that direction. Besides its only this one right here you need to pass. You get closer and the astringent smell fills your head with its strangely cloying sweetness, so much so that it feels like that’s all that’s in your head, this smell. For a few seconds you feel heavy, then you feel a slight rush in your arms and you’re past the pole, out of the chemical zone and in fresh air again.

So thanks, Portland. You go above and beyond.