“Cream, butter, bring it on. If you’re gonna do it, do it.” - Paul

As the laughing party guests trickled out and the restaurant staff started sweeping up, one of the crew asked me, how did it go? I was packing up my suitcase after talking with guests in a loud room for four and a half hours.

My heart was full and brain buzzing. “Kind of overwhelming,” I said. “But in a good way.”

“That pretty much describes Mother’s,” he said, “Overwhelming in a good way.”

Halfway through Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential I now have wild notions about restaurant life and wonder which of them might apply to the twists and turns of this Portland restaurant staple, somehow having survived a quarter century while most restaurants rise and fall in a handful of years. After spending a night among Chef Lisa Schroeder’s community, I take a guess that her relationships have a lot to do with her success. When I told my grandma I was drawing at this party, she beamed.

“Oh, Lisa is such a special person,” she said. “I took your cousin there for her birthday and she took the time to come and say hello, wish her happy birthday.” Wow, I thought. It’s one thing to send a cupcake or a group of singing waiters but another for the chef herself to come and wish you well. That would make me feel welcome in a way that singing waiters never could.

The energy of the party quickly grew like a wave, calm at 6pm and then booming against the walls by 6:30. To have conversations with my portrait subjects soon required leaning close and lipreading. If we couldn’t project our voices they wouldn’t be heard. Among the portrait subjects were restaurant regulars and close friends of Lisa’s, married couples and best friends, artists, and entertainers of all sorts. Drag queens weaved throughout the room in sparkly dresses, turning heads with their magnificence.

I was promptly invited to an EDM show by a couple with an extra ticket. I bonded with a woman over the newfound freedom of a big breakup. And I met a couple who was married for 25 years and said the first 18 are the hardest. Now they’re as in love as they’ve ever been, crying happy tears while telling their story and making me question everything I believe about following your happiness.

“It might not sound romantic, but sometimes you just hang in there,” one of them says. “Now I can’t imagine life without him.”

And the other, when I asked him what he loved about his wife, said “That laugh. I never get tired of her laughter.”

I met a couple with an open relationship who agreed they do not experience jealousy. Listened to a woman gush about seeing her husband become a father. Met Portland dance legends Wally and Paul who founded White Bird, and resonated wholeheartedly when Wally said that movement is dance, and he loves dance because it has the power to connect everyone across different languages and cultures. I drew a group of friends who work together at Speedboat Coffee and told me they would be hanging their portrait on the wall at the shop. (I’m going to visit and I better see it.)

I asked one couple how long they have been together and they responded, “In this life?” They said they’ve met in many lives; they believe that mountains move when you’re supposed to be together.

“When I first saw him,” she said, “he was shining, with light all around him.” They both wear a wrist full of woven bracelets, one for each year they have been together (in this life).

It seems that everything might be true when it comes to love, even seemingly conflicting perspectives. Two women, Val and Kate, who have built a life together for 44 years told me that their relationship has been fun the entire time—except for while one of them was getting her PhD. Entertainers at heart, they told me that in their vows they said they’d be together until it wasn’t fun anymore.

“If it’s not fun then why are you doing it?” Kate said. I couldn’t agree more. But then, there was that story about the hard 18 years and how they gave way to something transendant. So perhaps everyone has their own rules in love, their own instincts.

This being the celebration of a restaurant, my vision for the evening was to talk about food. I imagined my portrait subjects regaling me with stories of childhood favorites, of the flavors that bring back memories and make them close their eyes. Most of those talks about food were fleeting, and people weren’t taking the bait beyond perhaps mentioning their love of Indian food or tacos, or how they can only make chili.

Of those that jumped at the chance to talk food, one man spoke of his Italian grandmother who cooked spaghetti and sausages each Sunday for her family and 16 kids. He said he lives by the logic of Julia Child. “Cream, butter, bring it on. If you’re gonna do it, do it.” This was a group that didn’t shy away from decadence—be it in the realm of food, fashion or love.

Like usual, I drew a little late because there were people who had been waiting a long time and my wrist was barely beginning to feel twinges of fatigue. By 10:30pm the lights came on and staff began to tidy the room while the lingering guests sat and talked at the bar. My very last portrait of the night was of a whimsical woman who spoke about her connection to ravens.

Once I finished her portrait I began to pack my suitcase while she rummaged through her belongings looking for something to give me. She decided on her scarf, which as she put it was “still warm from her butt.” It was gray with little black owls, and it smelled strongly of patchouli. I wrapped it around my neck. “It suits you,” she said. “I love owls.” Moved by her kindness, I removed the yellow chrysanthemums from my bud vase and handed them to her. She smelled them, which is what I did too when I found them at the store and savored the honey sweetness of the blooms. “I almost want to cry she said.” We hugged.

I struggled with the latch on my suitcase for a while, then wrapped a brownie I was saving in a napkin, tucking it next to my pens to eat at home with my customary post-party cup of tea. If I was one of my own portrait subjects tonight, I might have said, speaking of brownies, they were the food I always craved after swimming as a kid. One time my mom made them before we went to the pool. My siblings and I worked up a good appetite and I remember dripping with pool water in the late afternoon with my mouth watering for the chocolate treats at home. After that, I always craved brownies after swimming.

Back home after midnight, I unwrapped the brownie and took a big bite. It had a creamy chocolate frosting, like ganache, adding a whole other level of decadence. I closed my eyes and knew that this was made with love.