Oregon: A Home-Sick Love Affair

Mt. Hood, picture taken from my childhood home

As a musician I am constantly striving to learn about other cultures and finding ways adapt  their dialects.

 

Just this last week in music history we talked about the Franco Flemish composers. How their art embodied an international style, enlivening and enriching their music.

 

 

 

I contiue to have adventures  and grow but I still get homesick.  

 

The most recent case of  homesickness started while I was reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed last week. The book charts her journey hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. The chapters about Mount Hood and the Three Sisters reminded me of the views from my childhood home. And like a mountain, saddness erupted out of me for all that is gone.

 

Picture curtoursey of
 http://www.cherylstrayed.com/wild_108676.htm

My parents used to joke that the house was so old that whoever bought it would bulldoze it to build a mansion. We had no heating in the upstairs and shag carpet, 30 years after it was fashionable. And I still miss it.

We had VIEWS. Down the road we had Multnomah Falls. And we had West Coast Culture- a million coffee houses and Powell's Books.

 

The South has its own charm- great antique stores, warm air and light winters. But there will always be something special about where I grew up. And a yearning to return- even though I know it is not the same place I left.

 

It seems that everywhere I go finds a way of becoming part of who I am. It reminds me of  the song "Home", attached below.