On the train to Portland.

It looked like we were in Twilight.

But we were actually just in the Northwest. Yes, it really does look like that.

We stayed at the Ace Hotel. It’s beautifully designed, so I took photos of everything. Everything.

Portland has craft stores everywhere. They even have a sewing store. I don’t know how to sew, but I still thought it was pretty.

We got to meet Elizabeth and Atlas (joy!) at the Grilled Cheese Grill, where you eat on a converted school bus. How brilliant is that?

At the recommendation of many friends, we visited In Other Words, one of very few feminist (or radical, for that matter) nonprofit bookstores and community centers left in the U.S.

We then visited the Kennedy School, which used to be an elementary school but is now a hotel, movie theater, a couple of restaurants, a bar and a soaking pool.

The bar is called The Boiler Room. It’s in the actual (former) boiler room. Ingenious.

We found a store on Alberta Street called Digs Inside and Out, which has a plentiful offering of gnome items. We procured a couple to help us with our gwishing.

And Stumptown coffee. Oh, Stumptown, I’m going to miss you (and the Pearl Bakery croissants you serve).

So in closing: Portland is amazing. I’m already planning my next trip. Portland for everyone!

I spent my childhood convinced that I was different.

It wasn’t just that I knew things that kids my age weren’t supposed to know, though I’m sure that was part of it.

It may have had something to do with the way I could know the secrets people were keeping without them being spoken aloud. And the way I could be trusted to take those secrets to the grave with me.

I remember standing in front of my bathroom mirror, pulling my thick, brown hair back, parting it at the side and draping it over one eye. Trying to devise a way to make who I was on the inside show on the outside. I was a secret agent, a master of seduction, a witch with undiscovered powers. But nobody knew it but me.

Here’s where Harry Potter comes in.

I maintained an elaborate fantasy that one day the rest of the world would discover the multitudes within me. It would be a little bit like Harry Potter. After a childhood of weird and different — unexplainable — events happening around me, all would be revealed on my eleventh birthday when a giant broke down the door and explained to me that I was, in fact, simply bursting with magic, and that the place I belonged was an enchanted castle where paintings talked and bathtub faucets produced rainbow bubbles.

Of course, that never happened. I’ve yet to receive a letter inviting me to become a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Instead, I inched closer to “adulthood” and all but forgot those elements of hidden magic that used to be so prominent in my daily life.

Looking back, I realize it probably wasn’t just me who was different. Other people have magic powers, too, though theirs are different from mine. There is (or once was) a lush world in everyone’s mind, behind every pair of eyes. And the vast majority of people abandon that magic world as they grow up.

Some people leave the magic behind forever, forgetting it ever existed. Some never lose sight of it. Others, like me, nearly forget its existence and grab onto a wisp of it just in time.

Even if you only have the tiniest shadow of magic left in your life, you can seize it and tenderly breathe life into it.

Magic is what ties all my work together. The coaching I do is little more than clearing space for the impossible to occur. When I take someone’s photograph and they see in the photo a spark of their super power, that’s magic right there.

There is magic everywhere and in all things.

A friend of mine has this Yevgeny Zamyatin quote in her email signature: “Revolution is everywhere and in all things.” I’d contend that there is magic everywhere and in all things. It sometimes just takes some excavation to find it. And faith.

A good dose of faith goes a long way when you’re searching for magic.

Today’s #reverb10 prompt comes from Cali Harris:

Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

I didn’t start out this year in search of community. Not really. Still, I found it.

I found it when I began classes at ICA and unearthed a plethora of people just as obsessed with listening and caring as I am.

I found it when I started to meet and become friends with bloggers I’ve been reading for years, and those I’m just now discovering.

I found community right here at Effervescence, when I shared with you that I was struggling with a need for some social interaction. You told me that you were, too. Then, throughout my Month of Social Magic, I found the roots of the community I’d yearned for had already grown around me.

I found community in the neighborhood where I live when I first went to the new yoga studio, and drank Stumptown coffee at the café where I picked up our CSA share, and when we went for a pre-Thanksgiving feast at our friends’ house just across the parkway.

I found an unfamiliar, new community at my new job, where gender politics are a regular topic of conversation and colleagues react with glee to the neon pink light on my desk.

I even found community, in 140 characters, on Twitter.

. . .

I wasn’t sure how to end this post, so I didn’t post it on the day I wrote it. It wasn’t quite ready yet. Then, yesterday morning, I read Tiffany’s community post, and I was inspired by her to get a bit more vulnerable here.

. . .

Yes, I found community this year. But just as Tiffany pointed out, it wasn’t easy. I rarely felt like I fit in, even when I was having a good time. It took a lot of courage, and a lot of patience with myself, to continuously put myself out there to meet other bloggers, to talk to my new (intimidatingly well-dressed) coworkers, to speak up in my ICA classes, and even to call up my friends for a chat. In fact, it was rather uncomfortable at times (and that’s putting it mildly).

But I did it. And it was worth it. And I’d love to be part of your online or face-to-face community, too. You can find me in the comments, by email or on Twitter.

Hugs and disco balls from the borough of Brooklyn.

Friday’s #reverb10 prompt, to which I’m responding today, was this:

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

Do you know what it’s like to have five people at once staying in a 350 square foot apartment? It’s cozy. And fun.

In April, my parents were visiting from Seattle. We had rearranged the apartment so that they would be sleeping in our bedroom, and Mary and I would be in the living room. What I didn’t know was that, in an intricate plan hatched without my knowledge, Adriana, my friend from Chicago whom I talk about here all the time, was coming to surprise me. So the morning of my birthday, I woke up sandwiched between my curly-haired best friend and Mary, on an inflatable mattress. It was more comfortable than it sounds, I promise.

Breakfast had been planned the day before. Most meals are when Mary, Adriana and I are involved. Our guests busied themselves in the kitchen while I took a backseat to the action.

Adriana, fresh out of Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, expertly browned potatoes in a pan. She used copious amounts of butter, and I leaned my nose to the stove, wafting that nutty, seductive aroma up toward me.

Jim made intermittent, good-hearted jokes, which predictably caused Mary to double over with laughter.

My mom and Mary sauteed onions and peppers, then added and reduced some dry vermouth and tossed in spicy sausage. Somebody cut up some fruit. Somebody else prepared the table.

Eventually, our meal was ready. We carried bowls and glasses to the table, and we took photos of the feast. We’re always taking photos of the food we eat in this house. And then we contentedly settled into the meal. There was silence at first, as we appreciated the delicate crunch of the potatoes’ buttery crusts. Once first bites were taken, the conversation grew. We passed around the fruit and exclaimed at the deliciousness of each dish. Mary groaned with delight over the potatoes and declared to Adriana, “This. Is why you’re a chef.”

How could I not feel alive? I was enjoying a delectably savory meal with some of the people I love most. We were awkwardly smooshed into our bright little apartment, and we were enjoying food prepared with the utmost care. I was truly, solidly alive.

Effervescence is a year old today. I know that because I started this blog with Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. A year later, #best09 has become #reverb10. I’m reflecting on the past year and looking forward to 2011 by joining in again. Today’s prompt, from Gwen herself, is this:

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

. . .

Yes. And abundance.

Those are the words I chose in December of 2009 to guide me through 2010. I think they played out to an extent. But this morning, as I was in the shower, contemplating which word (in retrospect) defined my 2010, I kept returning to perseverance. I didn’t want that to be my word for 2010, though, because it pulls the whole year into the struggle that fell smack dab in its middle.

Somewhere after April, when my parents and best friend had visited for my birthday and I had begun coaching school, I began to slip into depression. I didn’t recognize it as such at first, though. I thought it was the usual melancholy I feel in summer (because while the rest of the world perks up into the heat and humidity, I’m programmed to wilt and withdraw).

When, after a few months, I found myself crying in the bathroom and wishing fervently that I just wouldn’t wake up the next morning, I recognized that — ah, yes — I was depressed. Again.

From that point of realization, it took another couple months of clawing my way to locate doctors and fighting with the pharmacy over my insurance before there was relief. As I reflect on that time, I wonder whether it really was months, or if it just felt that way because each moment was so excruciating. I teetered back and forth as if on a tightrope, somehow avoiding the fall into complete, hopeless despair. A couple of times, the only thing that kept me from tumbling was Mary’s patient, consistent support with things like making food to eat and going to the doctor.

Meanwhile, I somehow completed the seemingly impossible task of finding a new job. I emerged from the search with a job that allows room for learning and growth, where I’m surrounded by queer people all the time. That I did this while depressed is, to me, the biggest accomplishment of my life.

And then, thanks to modern medicine and the welcome arrival of fall, I emerged from the hell of summer and was elated to find myself both still alive and happy about it. We went to Ireland, I began to blog more frequently, work progressed swimmingly, and I returned to coaching school with renewed energy. I continued to persevere, but in a less frantic and life-or-death kind of way.

Over the past three months, perseverance has seamlessly shifted to flow, the word that will carry me into 2011. My goals are now clearer, I know some of the steps I’ll take toward them, and I have tools and structures in place to keep nudging me forward.

2011 feels inevitable, like a river. I’m already in its flow.