I am sitting in a park in a Portland neighborhood. The dirt smells like South Dakota dirt. The streets look like any small town in Illinois. The trees look the same as any in the Midwest. The people could just as easily be from Wisconsin as Oregon. But the sky, the air... These are strange to me. The clouds look younger, more bold than they ever do in the Midwest. The air has a faint scent of saltwater.
After years of living away from Chicago I realized that I could smell Lake Michigan from Deerfield, perhaps even farther. Growing up in the area it was an ever-present smell that as far as I was concerned was simply how the air smelled. It wasn't until it was gone for years that I knew what it was. Now, where I sit, the part of the air that is reserved for one of the Great Lakes is filled with traces of saltwater and that strikes me as strange, and familiar.
I haven't seen much of Portland, and probably won't on this trip. In spite of that, it feels as familiar to me as a Chicago suburb, which is to say that it is close to home, but not home. For the first time in ten years I feel as if I am not at home, and for someone that has done a bit of traveling, including to another country in that time, that is very strange to say.
Still, it is comforting to recognize that feeling of "close to home", which is something else I have felt in years.
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