17 years ago, I came to Portland because I just love weather. It’s really fresh.

Part of my family is in California and they’re always telling me to come and live with them and I say ‘No, thank you!’ I love the seasons too much up here.

I came from Durango with my brother and we stayed for a few days with my family in California but my brother had an apartment here and, as soon as he told me about the weather here, I knew I wanted to live in Portland.

I only knew a very small amount of English when I came here because I love reading books. All the time, I was trying to learn English from the books I read because, to work in normal life here, it’s necessary to know at least a little English.

Where I’m from, maybe once in ten years, we see snow in Durango and I still remember the first snow storm here - I absolutely loved it. My family tells me I am crazy but I love driving in the snow, looking in the parks and seeing people in the snow. And now, my favorite thing to do is go to the beach as often as I can. Seaside, Seattle. Wherever I can take the dogs (Juvia and Pricipe), I love to go.

Most my friends are from this place that I work because we spend so much time together.

We’re not even just friends, we’re a family.

I am always open to learning everything that I can. When I first got to America, I started working in a kitchen and said I would wash the dishes if they needed me to. Then, they asked if I wanted to learn how to be a cashier and I said yes. Then, I took a job at McDonalds to learn how to work on the machines.

When I finally got the job at The Jupiter, I started as a housekeeper and only did it for two months. They looked at me and asked if I wanted to learn how to do laundry and I said yes! I wanted to learn everything I could. I stayed there for two years and they finally asked me if I wanted to be a houseman to clean the public areas, working in events and parties. I said yes again. Then, because I learned how to do all these things, they gave me a chance to be a supervisor.

Everyone is like a family to me here and we see each other every day. I work 5 days a week but many times, I need to come extra days so it can be 6 days. But I am always telling the housekeepers that they have all my respect because I know how hard the work is. 9am to 5:30pm every day. I usually do 11 rooms a day, 5-6 days a week for the last 16 years.

When I talk with my team now, I say ‘If you want to learn, I know how to teach you.’ I tell them ‘You don’t need to be a houseman to get paid well. The company treats us really well and gives us great benefits so it makes things easier.’

From here, I am hoping to be a director so I can learn even more.

All I want people to know is how much hard work there is in keeping your rooms clean and together. I’m almost 50 years old but I feel like I’m 30.

My parents passed away before they were able to come and visit Portland but now, I know they’re seeing the snow from where they’re at now.

-Dhorma

I love both my parents dearly but they’re both completely different people. They divorced when I was 14, right before my freshman year of high school, which was incredibly tough. It was like ‘7th grade was horrible. I’m just now trying to find myself after 8th grade and starting to be friends with people and now this.’ But my mom was the new age journey guru and that brought her to realize she had to leave my dad so she became my home base.

My mom always said ‘follow your bliss’ a billion times… Which is excellent to a point but theres just no guidance after that. How do I know what my bliss is mom? I was a teenager and barely even able to figure out how to handle a 175-person high school. I thought ‘Okay, I like helicopters. Does that mean I join the army? What does follow your bliss mean? Maybe I’ll go to college and try to figure it out.

The first place to accept me was Chico State, California so I went there. I didn’t even know what degree I wanted to do for the first 2 years and then I thought ‘I love customer service so I’ll pick ‘Resort and Lodging Management.’ But what happened was I got jaded very, very quickly while in the degree with hotels because I learned that the slog of most corporate management positions was total shit. Pay structure. Bureaucracy. Years of slaving until you get some tenure to finally make good money and have good hours. It was like ‘Cool, so I am going to work weekends, holidays and nights for middle grade pay but most of it is the responsibility of being a full out MOD.’ You’re going to be bounced around like you’re in the army. That was the main path being presented to me when I was coming out of college.’

So I said well, maybe I don’t want to work in hotels so I went and got a job at a sailing school because all I wanted was to learn how to sail more. I worked for 2 years at OCSC Sailing School in Berkley Marina and loved it. But I just didn’t feel like I had a community there that I was connecting to and it just always felt like I was struggling to find a place. I just didn’t feel like there was a path forward. So I decided to move back to Chico because there was a massage school I wanted to go to school at.

Got back there and realized that the sign-up window for getting into the school had passed by 2 weeks before I could get the money together. But I had already moved back. So I couldn’t get into school there but I needed a job so I could survive so I ended up going job to job.

I’ve always defined myself as a seeker. I remember I got a job in London for 3 1/2 months and when I looked out the window, it just faced directly at another office building. I couldn’t see anything else. No view. I had to put my head out the window to have even a remote kind of view.

I told myself right then that I had to live somewhere where I could at least see a horizon line. I was talking to another traveler and I told him ‘I just have to live somewhere where there is a horizon.’

And he came back the next day and said ‘You are living that horizon. You are doing it through people. You are creating and building a horizon of experience through each person you meet.’

And that made everything click for me. Because that’s how I love to live my life.

When I moved back to Portland, I asked my wife if she would be open to making our place an airBNB for us to welcome people to stay with us.

She was already here and had just done couch surfing for fun so I said ‘Lets do airBNB and see if people will pay to stay with us. Let’s keep it super cheap so its almost like couch surfing.’ We had a one-bedroom apartment so we rented our couch and an air mattress we had on our floor… And ending up having 4 nights a week booked for 2 years straight. We’d host backpackers and amazing people from all over the world and, because we weren’t charging much at all, they would stay with us for a week. It was like having micro roommates.

It ending up being the perfect idea.

We were new to the city too so every person that came in made us feel like tourists in our own city. We’d all go out and find a new place to get dinner and explore.

We paid our rent for 2 months that year but, best of all, we found a true, community shared experience. Because we weren’t charging much at all - The people that were coming were grateful and not entitled.

Now, those people are are my horizon line are the ones I can always call when I travel to their country.

You know, growing up as a white, heterosexual man in the suburbs middle class society, I now notice in my 40’s moments where I have inklings where I go ‘Oh no, I shouldn’t think like that.’

It took me until I was a fully rational adult and I am still in that process with those biases. But working here for the last 4 years has helped me immensely with that because it broadened the spectrum of the people I encounter and love on a daily basis, in a way that has actually helped me realize those things about myself.

Being in the right environment has made all the difference in that.

People like Norma has helped teach me the servant leadership that I like a lot.

And I just really enjoy being at a job that allows that level of introspection to become normal conversation in the workplace. I’m much happier now that I can tell people when I need a break and it won’t feel like a fight the whole way.

Because it used to feel like a fight.

I think relatability is a key component to wisdom.

If you don’t have a key relationship with the person giving the wisdom then it’s hard for it to be relatable. If you don’t have something that you can feel trust in with the person you’re gaining wisdom from, then the wisdom is harder to take.

One of the main takeaways in life so far is that: I have so much more than I am able to give but only if I keep myself open to being able to receive. It’s true for every single person I meet… If you are open to being vulnerable in that moment.

If there’s a wall between you, then you’re not going to connect and you’re not going to remember.

-Andrew

“I was born and raised my whole life in Portland. When my parents moved to Las Vegas, they wanted me to move with them but respected I had a life here that I wanted to continue.

Before working at The Jupiter, I used to work in retail and then tried working in restaurants but just decided they were not for me. Thankfully, I found my love for hotels because I get to be around people all the time.

One of my best days was when my high school friend invited me to the Japanese gardens to take a walk. What I didn’t know was that she was setting me up on a date with a guy I am still with today.

If I had my way, I’d do my favorite thing in the world which is play the Sims all the time.

But one life long dream has always been to open up a small tea cafe someday. Just something really simple, with pastries and sweets.

One thing I’ve learned is: To find the silver lining, all you can do is take care of your home base. That’s all that’s in your control.”

-Ashley