Tonight as we walked across Jesus Green I noticed one of my fellow boaters was out in the dark calling for her lost cat, and it struck me that I have grown accustomed to common lands functioning not just as public space but as my own backyard.
We use the space to play, eat, read, and cycle, ignoring the grandeur interspersed with grazing cattle and monuments to martyrs. The commons are more evocative of this university city than any of the closed colleges; I don’t know when I will leave, but I already know that I will miss them.
My kid, five when we left Portland and almost thirteen now, stopped to watch someone practicing tricks. He asked “Which of our friends ate fire?”
I know many circus performers, but he has only met a few. “I’m not sure who you mean,” I replied. “Bob? Remember, she lived in a house called The Palace, with a trapeze in the front room and a half-pipe out back.”
“Half-pipe?”
“Skate ramp.”
“Oh. So she lived in the most fun house ever?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I don’t remember.”