I think I lived in one of the last childhoods in Portland where vacant lots, brambles, long adolescent bike rides, and phone-free shenanigans existed.

Up until a couple years ago, I still remembered several childhood friend’s home phone numbers. They might be the first things to return if I suffered that Casino Royale torture scene. Although I don’t think I’d tell Le Chiffre that it “tickled.” You could set me down blindfolded in southeast between Foster and Burnside—- 82nd to 12th and I’d be able to stumble my way just about anywhere.

I used to keep packs of gum in that underseat bag that old Schwinn's had. I owned a banana yellow Schwinn varsity that weighed more than I did until puberty hit. With a solid steel frame and brakes that screeched like hellcats, I wasn’t wanting for a more noticeable bike.

It’s funny for all the soccer balls and bikes at the house, my family never had a reliable air pump. On occasion that there was a handpump, the needle for a ball would be m.i.a. and if the hand pump itself was missing, I’d have to get keys to a car, find the air pump, and suffer the ear splitting ordeal of hissed air.

In later years, I’d ride that bike late into the night with teenage friends as we drank and smoked in local parks. There were never cars out at two in the morning as we meandered through the Irvington neighborhood. If I was ever over in SE, I’d be riding in a Scion TC that blared hip hop luminaries like Too Short, Biggie, E-40, and others. I can close my eyes when I smell fresh weed and step back into a memory laced with adolescent hope and nerves. The hovering thumb over the send button of a text to a crush (the first navigation of texts being introduced into my world).

There was an undercurrent of the fear of being seen. I wonder if that’s why I majored in Anthropology— an academic study in observation. It dovetailed with writing. The juxtaposition to my current jobs of teaching and coaching. All those adolescent years were centered around believing myself to being something that couldn’t be articulated in my everyday. I think that was a defense mechanism towards being held accountable for tangible dreams.

It was easier to flit between dreams and aspirations than to hold dear to anything. That way I wouldn’t be crushed when it didn’t work out. It was never a problem of not caring— it was the fear of caring too much that led to apathetic performances in an ultimately self-destructive way.

As it goes, it’s not an unfamiliar story. I think there’s a deep set fear in many of us of being truly known.

But without the courage that vulnerability requires, you’ll never connect to the world or yourself in the ways that count.

And as I walk through this neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon with a gentle breeze shifting the branches overhead. I wonder if this feeling of muteness was always going to give way to incandescence.

If somewhere out of sight— out of the mind. My soul had a finger on that magnesium capped matchstick— just waiting for me to summon the courage to once again strike it.