In September 2019, I was in New Zealand, enjoying a sunset from a swingset, when I got the kind of email you're not supposed to get on vacation. Someone accidentally cc'd me on a memo: my entire department in Los Angeles was being dissolved.
But before I could spiral, something unexpected happened. My brain, in a voice that was inexplicably — and unmistakably — New Zealand-accented, said:
"Portlind. Yer movin' to Portlind, and yer gonna werk for Nike."
No hesitation. No committee meeting. Just one, crystal-clear directive — delivered like a spiritual Slack message.
And then I saw it: a red carpet unrolling from my LA apartment steps — dramatic, unnecessary, borderline delusional. It stretched all the way to Portland like some self-authored myth. No music. No crowd. Just me, a duffel bag, and the kind of unwarranted certainty usually reserved for cult leaders and reality show finalists.
"Nuthin' to think about, mate. It's awl sorted. Retenshun bonus. Sev'rance. Sell the lot. Pack the rest. Book a trrruck. Say yer goodbyes. Get on wit it. If not now, then when, eh?"
You know how people say, "I was the first in my family to graduate college"? Well — I was the first in mine to leave L.A. Which was the hardest part.
My sister and I had been next-door neighbors in Hollywood for years. It was a pretty sweet setup. My parents showed up unannounced, then announced, "We're having brunch." My brother and his pool were three miles away. And I'm not being ungrateful when I say this, but I had too many friends. Seriously. Way too many. It was all very inconvenient.
But the carpet had already unrolled. And I was walking it.
I moved out of my LA place and arrived in Portland on March 13, 2020. March — Friday the 13th, 2020. By Monday the world was fear shopping and people had begun to shelter in place.
The moving company I hired took the truck full of my belongings to Vegas and kept it there for over two months. And it was fine. I bought a piano and wrote funny songs about not knowing what to do about excessive bubble wrap. Nobody knew what to do. At that point in my life, I considered myself a rich monk. I had overalls, a few turtlenecks, that bed-in-a-box, and my mom felt so bad for me she bought me art supplies and books. And I painted and read and designed and thought — "OK, a few more months of this and I'll go snag my Nike job."
Between then and now, I worked on projects that were fun, some that were meaningful. I missed community; I missed contributing to something larger. I still miss that. I feel like it was a sliding door situation, and it closed on a few of my fingers.
After fulfilling obligations to clients, buying and selling that cute condo — here I am, and I'm all in. I'm not going to settle for anything less than my dream of working at Nike. This is what I came here to do and I'm doing it.
