Flip 1--NE Peerless Place and Oregon Street

4/15/2007 3:19 PM Sunday
Location: NE Peerless Place and NE Oregon Street, Portland


In the heart of the Laurelhurst neighborhood, on a balmy Spring day, I sit on the low curb of this five-way intersection. Around me I hear the familiar weekend sounds of my childhood (as I grew up only a mile or two from here): a power edger, a chainsaw, distant traffic, a bird.

A few houses away, a small girl is in tears in her backyard. Her father laughs soothingly, and then I hear her mother's voice, and then the girl stops crying. I hear a wind chime, and the sound of a breeze through the cherry trees, which are in bloom.



A mother and daughter ride through the intersection on bicycles. The sunlight attenuates behind the occasional cumulus cloud, then reemerges, seemingly brighter than before.





A pair of pink Converse Chuck Taylors hang innocuously from a power line. When the sunlight goes away, I am temporarily chilly.

In the window of the pale yellow house cater-corner across the intersection, there is a sign: "Relax," it says in cursive.