It is one of my great shames in life to admit that I didn't come to Portum sooner. For years, I had felt the fog in the horizon, and heard word of the town spoken by the few fellow supernatural beings I encountered during years I'd rather not discuss. I knew, but Portum terrified me. Community terrified me, and it still does. Many of the people reading this may have never truly spoken with me, and that is by my own design.
I'm admittedly reclusive, but that doesn't mean I don't value the community I have always needed.
I needed Portum. I was in a terrible place before I came here, the sort of terrible that involved pushing even my sisters away. And when I got here, it was exactly what I expected, what I knew I'd been avoiding. A town where small businesses are given room to thrive, people care for their neighbours and I no longer had to seethe in resentment for the powers of mankind? It is, most certainly, a sanctuary.
As you might expect, my sisters were the first connections I had in this town, the people I sought out. To reunite with Juni and Rory was one of those rare, truly euphoric moments in my life. To feel their arms around mine again after so long... to describe it would be, perhaps, a little too intimate for what I wanted this thinkpiece to be. All you need to know is that I adore them, that I would and have killed for them, and that they are the best people I have ever known.
I have connected with many of the local business owners, people who have always been gracious enough to commit to accessibility where I need it. I know that I always have a menu I can read, or your sincere understanding, and I appreciate that more than words can say.
And Hera, who I had known before Portum, is a huge motivator for me in my work at the art gallery. Her strength astounds me, as does her appreciation for art, and especially her ongoing work for the town in the wake of everything that happened. The council may have failed us, but Hera certainly has not.
There is, perhaps, obvious reason why I am an artist and not a writer (although I did love to tell stories in my youth). I have cut myself off far too much, and am hardly of a mind to share my most intimate thoughts on my sisters, or indeed the other incredible I have known in Portum, in such an honest way. Come to the gallery, if you haven't lately, and see my feelings on the town laid out in the ways I feel most comfortable. Less honest, but you can interpret art in whatever way it speaks to you.
To many more years here, and in the hope that Portum's newer, brighter age may be upon us.