I used to think context was physical. That meaning was rooted in longterm commitment to a specific place. I don't know that this is false now. (I don't know much I've discovered, to tell you the truth.) But, I've discovered a new joy in exploration. Not knowing the backroads down here, not knowing the reputations of the different towns, not knowing the best (and worst) places to grab a burger, this is all becoming exciting rather than daunting. Moving away from my home initially made me hyper-sensitive to my outsider status in a place where most of the people I know now grew up. Now, I was the foreigner, the one gives you that blank look when you have to get more and more general when telling me how to find a great hike you're recommending or what town you grew up in. I hated that transition, from knowing all the nooks and crannies of Puget Sound to not even knowing if a town is on the east or west side of the state. I dunno what fog is finally lifting but I'm starting to chomp at the bit to get out and wallow in my ignorance. I want to buy a black and white map of the state of Oregon and starting filling it in, with color, as I figure out what's where. I'd always imagined living somewhere open when I was a kid. I fantasized about yawning landscapes and pine forests. That was an impossibility in the tucked in, cloud covered, soggy Puget Sound basin, that place I never thought I'd leave. Now that those ties are cut, at least for the time being, I wonder what sort of weird prairie Oregon is hiding. The Willamette Valley has already claimed a portion of my heart. Corvallis started digging in before I ever considered Oregon. Now it feels like my home away from home. It's even starting to get some depth and hold a little bit of sadness rather than two-dimensional good times. Like any good place, history isn't going to be all roses. But, getting back to the point at hand, I think I may have set aside the urge to feel at home somewhere. I'm not sure yet, it's been such an obsession for so long, but I don't feel that same intensity to feel belonging right now. I just feel excitement for discovery. Maybe this is the whole point. Maybe in releasing that need to control your comfort, you open yourself to a vulnerability that's necessary to truly be welcomed home. I suppose there is only one way to find out.