Here I am: on vacation. In Oregon. Haunting my old haunts.

This is a vacation?

Yes, actually, the best one I could think of.

Now, I suppose you’re asking: what in the world makes this a good choice for a getaway (rather than someplace new and, perhaps, slightly-more exotic)?

I’ve been mulling this over, and I think that it’s not only my desire, but my compulsion, to find someplace safe for a few days. Now, that may sound a little strange, given my recent observations about the lack of security and support I enjoyed here before I left the state…but I believe that simple familiarity (and the accompanying feeling of) safety is what it comes down to.

I went to the Oregon Country Fair for a few hours yesterday. And I’ll be there for awhile again tomorrow. I seek out this venue despite the fact that I am not (and never have been) an organizer, vendor, helper, or any kind of active participant of the event. I am not part of the Fair’s insider culture. All that I’ve ever done, off and on over the course of nearly thirty years, is look at the public part of the Fair through my lens and record selected microseconds here and there. During nearly all my visits, I have gone alone; I rarely interact for anyone for more than a few seconds or minutes. I am not known, and no one knows me. (I only rarely even see anyone familiar there.) In terms of the life of the Oregon Country Fair, I’m about as anonymous as anyone possibly can be. Yet, the event is part of my life, and carrying around a camera and wandering these now well-known grounds in rural Veneta, Oregon is part of who I am.

Today, right now, I’m in Corvallis. At the downtown Starbucks. For what it’s worth, amazingly, I see no one else with a laptop.

Yes, Corvallis. The city I lived in from 1970 to 1990. I moved here immediately after my graduation from college…a few weeks after the Kent State tragedy, oh those many years ago. I have lived no where longer than the twenty years I spent here. By the time I left (for graduate school in Indiana), I thought there would never be a place I’d call home other than Corvallis. However, the time I spent in Eugene from 1995 to 2004 was highly significant, and it is that place that I now call “home”…having now lived in Portland, Roseburg and Larkspur since.

While Eugene enjoys that place in my heart, Corvallis is very special, and is particularly effective in providing me a sense of safety and security. Largely, these positive feelings are ones I associate with the Oregon State University campus. During the time I lived here in Corvallis, and also during the years when I lived elsewhere in Oregon, whenever I was feeling confused, lost, depressed, or desperate (and I think I’ve had more than my share of those times), it was to the OSU campus I came.

And when I got here: I walked. I sat. I read. I slept on the couches in the MU lounge. For some reason, here, I was able to just be. Like nowhere else on earth.

So today I went to campus again. I finished off a novel I’ve been reading the last few days. I sat on one of the benches at the edge of the quad. I watched a few young people walk by (on a Saturday in the summer, the campus is very quiet).

I tried to still my mind.

My mind needs stilling because this visit has produced a huge, and unexpected, emotional reaction on my part. For, while I have a good job, and people that support me, in my current place in California, I have a long way to go before I’ll be assimilated there. In fact, I’m not sure that going native will ever happen for me in Marin County. I’m not one of them. And, often, I think that I’m not sure I want to be.

It’s Oregon where I belong. It’s here where I’m home. If there’s anywhere in the universe where I “fit” – with the culture and the geography – this would be the place.

My mind needs to be stilled, needing a respite from this longing…a longing that has only been brought more to the surface by this trip.

I look out the window at downtown Corvallis… preparing, as I finish this, to head back to Eugene. And wonder…about the winding path this is that we call life.

What could possibly be next?

Soundtrack Suggestion

I say high, you say low
You say why, and I say I don't know
Oh, no
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello
Hello, hello
I don't know why you say goodbye
I say hello…

(“Hello Goodbye” – The Beatles)