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The Daily Astorian
Friday, April 29, 2016
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Weekend Edition
Submitted Photos
LONG, LONG GONE
Author recalls move from the city to the coast
By MATT LOVE
Special to The Daily Astorian
A
couple of months ago, my
ex-wife Cindy Popp mailed
me a Polaroid of the loft I once
owned in Portland’s Pearl Dis-
trict and where we once lived. (She
apparently found the photo in an old
book of ours.) I am so glad she sent it
to me because I have very little recol-
lection of who I was in those days and
I think it’s important I be reminded
every now and then what Portland once
meant to me.
Today, I can hardly believe that I
used to own a loft in the Pearl District
and actually got in the ground fl oor of
that whole gentrifi cation movement in
the mid-90s. During that time, I virtu-
ally never went to the beach, owned
a dog, or really understood the spe-
cial attributes of living in Oregon. I
was very much a man of the city and
derived my entire cultural life from see-
ing live music in the three or four rock
’n’ roll clubs that existed back then.
I bought the 860-foot one-room
unit on NW 10th and Hoyt in 1995 for
roughly $40,000 . (That is no typo.) I
was one of the fi rst to buy a loft in this
era and it wasn’t one of those faux units
built in the coming years that began to
fall apart when hard rains came. This
was a historic building and the prop-
erty taxes were frozen for 10 years. My
mom helped me buy it with a $5,000
gift. My mortgage was $292 a month
and that included most of the utilities
and cable! I was double paying the
mortgage every month and could have
owned it in three years. I was set for life
in Portland with that condo.
Look at this loft’s interior! I had
a custom-made wood-framed plat-
form bed with a walk-in closet. I had
a restaurant booth for the kitchen area
and a teak, stand-up bar from a military
vet who shipped it all over the world. I
painted the entire interior and fl oor with
bright Mediterranean colors that belied
the natural colors just outside my win-
dow, the window with a grand view of
a rag factory and Interstate 405.
At some point, I became fed up
with Portland and myself in the city,
and decided I needed a drastic change
at 33 years of age. Frankly, it felt last
ditch.
When I escaped Portland to the Ore-
gon Coast in 1997 to reinvent myself as
a writer, I rented the loft out for $500
a month. I felt bad making money on
it. I hated being a landlord and sold it
in 1999 in three minutes for $120,000 ,
paid off Cindy’s student loan debt, and
helped fi nance my journey to becoming
a writer.
That loft is worth about a million
dollars today. Yes, I’d be a quasi-mil-
lionaire today. I’d be the Squire of the
Pearl and would have never written a
word for publication or became the
kind of teacher that would honor my
parents, easily the two best teachers
I’ve ever seen in the classroom.
Selling that piece of urban con-
crete was the best thing I ever did. I
have never regretted it. It liberated me
and gave me a cushion. I invested the
profi t in Cindy and myself to become
The author and his
dog, Sonny, enjoy a
sunset together.
a writer and pursue the only dream I’d
ever had as a youth or adult. I covered
some of this ground in my 2010 mem-
oir called “Gimme Refuge: The Educa-
tion of a Caretaker,” but the story is so
much richer now and I suspect there are
a lot more people in Portland who felt
as I did in 1997. The city seems almost
unbearable to me whenever I visit any-
more, which isn’t often. The only rea-
sons I do make the drive in are to pro-
mote my books or see my parents. I
miss the old gray cheap slow irony-free
Portland, but those days are long, long
gone. I’ve moved on.
As I examine that photograph of
the loft, I know letting go of that Port-
land life and forgoing the money of that
investment was the ultimate answer
to my success as a becoming a writer
and a better teacher. And as I recall, it
wasn’t that hard of a decision.
Matt Love teaches at Astoria High
School and is author and editor of 14
books. They are available at coastal
bookstores, through www.nestuccaspit-
press.com and local libraries.