Still Grinding Forward

Its funny in a way, that when you leave a place that you've been rooted to for a long while, it's like a slow divorce. Or a guillotine chop. Or both. When I first moved to Eugene in the summer of 1992, it was such a fresh, new change for me. I loved the heat that summer. When I had previously lived in Northern California on the coast, I had grown accustomed to the dreary, overcast, 40-degrees-in-the-summer gloom, so Eugene seemed lush, green and hot that summer. I was ready for the change and I drank it in like wine. The winter that followed featured a record amount of snow, deep in the streets, and I was ready for that, too. I drank a lot of good seasons in Eugene and Lane county, but somewhere along the line, while simultaneously making friends and making music and occasionally acting busy, raising my kids and family and working  and all that entails, I became thirsty again, thirsty for the difference, the change, not the same. And now that I'm there, again in a new town, with new surrounds, new weather, new wildlife and a bunch of new people, I get to drink some more of the flavors of life, more of the new. In my mind, Eugene is my reference, and I am glad I still have the formatted imprint of such a weird town. If Eugene hadn't been so weirdly accommodating,  I probably wouldn't have stayed there for nearly 20 years. But I'm glad I did.