Portland S

Stuff
Sunday, January 22
I met up with my friend Nissa today to journey over to the ReBuilding Center. I met Nissa in Minneapolis last spring--she has been here even less time than I and she needs a coffee table for her new apartment. Her friend Isaac, who joined us, is looking for a desk.

Isaac was kind enough to drive, so I had the opportunity to navigate, which is treat for a relative newcomer to Portland. The ReBuilding Center at 36th and Mississippi in North Portland is either a paradise of "diamonds in the rough" or purgatory for all manner of junk that, for now, has escaped the garbage dumpster but could just as easily sit here forever. It all depends on what you see. I start off in the latter category. (I think I was born without the male hardware gene. The only tools I own are scissors and masking tape and even that I can't handle, according to the clerk at the local postal office who, earlier in the week, just shook her head and said, "You're fired." when I dropped off a package.)

We get inside the building and are greeted with aisles of doors stacked up like dominoes, window frames, tubes, light fixtures, toilets, bathtubs, old carpet--every conceivable thing you could strip from a home. According to its website, this nonprofit center--which is staff mainly by volunteers-- "has the potential to divert nearly ten tons of construction and demolition waste per day by 2008."

At first, I'm overwhelmed by all the stuff and, besides, I don't need anything. But my view changes when I talk with Andrea, who shows me the tile section. She tells me that artists are some of their biggest customers. Pipes get incorporated into sculptures. Tiles are smashed and used in mosaics, even old windows and doors--with their ready-made frames--become canvasses for paintings. Suddenly, I start to look at things differently. I try to help out my friends who are looking for flat pieces of wood for a coffee tabletop. I ask Andrea what one would use for legs. She blinks and says, "How about legs?" Of course! She takes me over to a cast-off leg bin, but alas, they are out. I catch up with Nissa and Isaac and they happily show off two large shutters that will be fashioned into a coffee table.

Afterwards we go to a Fred Meyers--a local Superstore chain in Northeast and it's culture shock after being in the Rebuilding Center. Isaac looks for a desk, but doesn't find anything that works. I buy a nonstick frying pan to celebrate my decision to stay in Portland for a few more months. Maybe with a little imagination, I could have put something together at the Rebuilding Center. But I do plan on going back. Once the Portland Project is done, I think I'm going to try mosaics. How hard could it be? Even Andrea thought I could do it!