Working at home

I was born in Springfield, raised in Montana, spent my first post-high school years in England, and have lived in towns and cities from L.A. to Seattle. But my home is Portland; I moved here in 1981 and, despite having come and gone numerous times, this is the city that I know as home. I hope to live in many places around the world before I die, but I know, no matter where I go, that when people ask me my hometown, the answer will come easily:

Portland, Oregon.

It is a two-word answer, by the way. It’s not not enough that Portland is my home; so, too, is Oregon. Having spent some of my most important adult years in Eugene and Corvallis, and with Bend and now Silverton playing meaningful parts in my life, being an Oregonian is an integral part of my identity.

I’m an Oregonian who lives in Portland.

Why does this matter today? Because after years of living in the right place doing the wrong things, at last I have the chance to get the vocational part of my life right. Last December, I was hit by a car on my bicycle (how the car got on my bike, I’ll never know…) and the insurance settlement, while not huge, is enough for me to set off on my own. No more job-to-pay-the-bills. No more going to the office because I have no option. From now on, I will be doing what I should have been doing for a long time:

Working from my heart. Not to mention my real skillset.

This is just me announcing, to the few who will read it for now, that the shingle has been hung outside the door, so to speak, and that “t.a. barnhart, writer” has finally made the commitment. “Writers write” says Harlan Ellison, and I am finally living that life. I have my websites to work from, I have one job in hand, and I have another opportunity that needs me to complete a web design so I can market it to the potential client.

I can do this, not because I have a chunk of money to live off for a while, but because I live in Oregon. This is a small state: there’s only 3 million of us here. By writing on BlueOregon for the past 4-1/2 years, and by being active with the Bus Project and the Dems, I have gotten to meet and know many of our state’s leaders. Because this is Oregon and we value keeping each other on the same level, I am on a first-name basis with people who would not give me the time of day in most other states unless I had a significant campaign contribution in hand. I know that I’ll get the interviews, the background material and the readers I will be counting on; the people I’ll ask for this have been reading me for over four years, and they know my work. They know my concern is for the state and its people, not my ideology or specific campaigns.

I can do this because, in Oregon, it’s possible to do this. I am very excited to be freelancing, scary as it might be at times to realize there is no more guaranteed monthly paycheck. But because I live in Portland, Oregon, I’ll be able to get both content and audience; I’ll have to earn both, but this is a city and a state where that is possible.

There is so much you can do at home that is not possible elsewhere.