Huffing and puffing, I raised my foot to the next step. This is how I walked up the whole staircase on the side of a suburban hill in Portland. Here was my process: step up , heave body, drop left foot heavily next to right. Wheeze. Think, “I’m going to die.” Repeat. They say that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, but did they mean vertically?

This was my situation:

The trip went well. All of Emma’s parents got along, we all got to see her room, and how she’s been spending her days. We made the most of tight quarters in the hotel, creating a boys’ room and girls’ room, which works well when your spouse is the same gender as you. It felt good to see Emma’s life in such a cool city.

EXCEPT…why does the land go up? You must understand that I have lived below sea level all my life. In New Orleans, the highest hills are the man-made levees that run along the Mississppi River, like bumpers in a bowling lane. The air is thick. It’s wet hot in the summer and wet cold in the winter. It takes nose muscle to take a deep breath outside. It sounds awful, but I’m used to it.

Pulling me out of southern Louisiana and sticking me on top of a hill in Oregon is like taking a deep sea creature out of the ocean. I sputter and die. I might even explode from the difference in atmospheric pressure. When I was out of breath on the steps, I couldn’t figure out how to breathe. My nose muscles were used to thickness. The air in Portland was thin. How would I breathe in enough of it?

How has my daughter survived?

“You can’t live here,” I wheezed, pausing on a step. “There’s no air.”

“What are you talking about?” she said. “This place is loaded with air.”

I looked at her like this:

“I see your point,” she said.

She said that she wasn’t used to it yet either. She sometimes misses the humidity, which is something I never thought I’d hear her say. This is a kid who has always hated the heat. As a toddler in her car seat, she would struggle to take off her clothes because the fabric from the seat was too hot and it made her shirt stick to her back. From about the time she was three I had a feeling she wouldn’t stay in New Orleans when she got older.

Turns out she’s a sea creature just like me. But she’s adjusting. She’s not sputtering or exploding.

Look at my little thriving star fish: