I lived in Hawai’i for over 3 decades. Most of the time, I lived on Maui, a beautiful, idyllic island. I had the good fortune to create a thriving massage practice and be my own boss. I had a beautiful office and worked with a couple of wonderful colleagues who rented space from me.
Our home, with panoramic, bi-coastal views, had an exquisite yard filled with native plants and a massive veggie garden. For a time, we had chickens AND bees.
I remember how surprised I was when I began to find the idea of moving on, leaving the islands … entering my thoughts. That was around 2015. I began to consider that perhaps it’s time to change the scenery, experience a new community, make new friends, and expand my horizons.
Sugandha (my wife) and I talked seriously about it. Then, in late 2018, we took a trip to look around and see where we may want to live when the time came. We actually settled on the possibility of Portland and imagined perhaps in 2-3 years, we would make a move.
Next, enter Covid, March 2020 – and we don’t know what the future holds, so these plans to relocate went on the back burner.
Then, another shock! Sugandha and I got our notice, after 25 years, to move out of our home. In the middle of a pandemic?! Everything is coming to a standstill! How can we pack up and move???
OK, Mask Up – Portland, here we come!
Little did we know that moving during a pandemic, albeit scary, was relatively easy. Everything was available to us for the days we needed. Things like container shipping, car shipping, and rental cars. AND, the best was 2 cats traveling with us in mostly empty planes!
I knew that I would continue to pursue my career in massage therapy in Portland, as I have done for the last 30 years on Maui. I had already spent nearly every waking moment of the previous 18 months attending and studying Anatomy and Physiology classes online at the University of Hawai’i. This was to get my extra classroom hours for the Oregon State Massage License, which requires more hours than Hawai’i. After 30 years of being a massage therapist, I had to go back to the classroom to be able to practice in Oregon. The good news, it prepared me to pass the dreaded Oregon Board exam!
There were a lot of silver linings in this transition.
As we were packing and getting rid of LOTS of STUFF, I had my little daydream, pretending that I would come to SE Portland and find a sweet little massage clinic just around the corner in my Sunnyside/Mt Tabor neighborhood.
I finally received my Oregon massage license about 3 weeks after we arrived and had moved into our new home. But unfortunately, the pandemic was still surging, and beginning a private practice seemed out of the question. So, my make-believe clinic was forgotten, and I went to work in a great clinic doing 16 massages a week.
It was a great blessing!!! And I never looked back. I completely forgot my daydream. I was so happy.
Peter Black, LMT – Listening Hands Massage and Freelance Writer