Portland to the prairie: returning to my roots

By Tessa Torgeson

Home is a tangled web at the core of all of our stories -- that beautiful ugly mess that we try to escape, sometimes denying the way that it shapes and morphs us. As we mature we realize that home is more than a dot on a map. Like it or not, home is a place that we will one day return to, although each of our pilgrimages veer in different directions. Home can haunt us, but it can also heal us.

I grew up landlocked smack dab in the heartland of Bismarck, North Dakota. I always dreamed of leaving North Dakota, just because I knew it would break my heart and I knew I needed to break my own heart, splinter it to pieces in order to regrow. I needed to leave the safe, comfortable tapestry of the prairie landscapes. It seemed as though I knew each haystack, as though I’d inhabited each square of our small city’s lazy sidewalks, and I was angry at the pain I had endured here.

I needed to pursue the mythical, the adventure, to let the wanderlust caged within me free. So in August of 2014 I finally decided to move to the gorgeous, scenic cultural hub of Portland, Oregon. I was accepted into a creative writing certificate program, a practical alternative: pursue my passion rather than attending an expensive Master’s of Fine Arts Program. My boyfriend at the time’s brother generously said we could live in their basement until we got on our feet, a basement that just so happened to be a mansion in the West Hills.

A true fiercely stubborn Norwegian/ German-Russian hybrid, I declined offers of help, insisting that my 25 hour drive to the Pacific Northwest would be a solitary voyage, aside from the company of my cat, the late Toby Tutone, and my bass Helga.

It felt metaphorical that ironically there was a quintessential Midwestern storm both when I left home and when I returned. The air was thick as molasses, the humidity kissed my skin with sweat. The thunder ominously roared like a bass drum, then vivid streaks of lightning danced across the sky. I thought about how when I was a little girl my babysitter told me lightning was God’s finger clawing across the sky while he went bowling, which of course was thunder.

This storm took on a new meaning when I returned, since I had not seen a storm of this magnitude in two years since leaving North Dakota. Here we inhabit extremes, us hearty Midwesterners as rugged and jagged as our beloved badlands. On the contrary, Oregon is a mild, temperate place despite its weeping skies of rain in winter. The differences between the two states are so vast they span beyond the reaches of this column, but both have parts of my heart.

My compass led me to Oregon to experience a different part of the country and new city, meet new people, to explore, to adventure, and to empower myself to leap beyond my comfort zone. At times, living in Oregon was fiercely exhilarating. I loved being able to zip North on I-5 to see an old friend in Seattle, see the Puget Sound/ Pike’s Place, and pay a visit to Kurt Cobain’s memorial or South to explore the Rogue Valley and Redwoods. It was amazing to hike the trails and see the waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge or go to the ocean, then see one of my favorite bands or comedians at night.

I loved being part of the beauty, the culture, and quickly wanted to embrace and adopt Portland as my home along with all the other transplants. I unknowingly moved to Oregon when it was the most moved-to state in the country.

Yet still sadly, I was embarrassed of being from North Dakota and I often told people vaguely that I was from “the Midwest.” I was tired of being asked about the movie Fargo, teased about my accent. I was tired of people confusing N.D. with our neighbors, quickly ready to explain that we were not in fact the home of Mount Rushmore or the Black Hills, and that the movie Fargo was not even filmed in Fargo! In short: I was tired of our home state being the punchline of jokes and I grew increasingly homesick.

I realized that the arms of adventure only carried me so far. When times were dark, I needed familiar arms of family and old friends to hold me and comfort me. But they were all 1500 miles away. I had refuge with my boyfriend at the time, work, and writing friends, but everything was so unfamiliar, so jagged, so raw, so overwhelming, so dark.

Despite its reputation as a liberal, green mecca, Portland is actually a really dark city with a huge homeless population, drug epidemic, housing crisis, and astronomical rents. I felt hollow, completely drained after a series of unfortunate events from a car break-in and identity theft to heartache to ongoing depression.

The universe was practically shrieking at me that Oregon wasn’t the right fit for me at this juncture in my life, that I’d done what I had to do for now, and home was calling me. I was grateful I’d left, I’d had amazing times in Portland, and I answered the nagging voice within me that said, “go.”

I am not writing this to scare or discourage anyone from leaving. Your call is unique and you must be the one to listen and answer it. It takes bravery to leave. Leaving can be healing. Charles Dickens said, “One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.”

Along with forgiveness, coming back has taught me just as much as leaving, and took just as much bravery. Coming back has been one of the best decisions.

I love N.D. for what it is not: overpopulated, polluted, snobby, dangerous, and expensive. Most of all though I love N.D. for our friendly, down-to-earth people, compassion, humility, subtlety, and understated beauty. You can leave N.D., but it will not leave you and it will always be here to return to, quietly, patiently waiting.