From There to Here

It's no secret -- the move from New York City to this little tiny town in Oregon took quite a bit of adjustment on my part. After several years, I think I have finally settled in and don't have the overwhelming discontentment I felt in my earlier years of Oregon living. While I do miss so many things about my life in New York, with friends being at the top of the list, for the first time in years I feel okay knowing that I will probably not be returning to the City to live. I know you are probably thinking that I am nuts. Well, I am nuts, but aren't we all in one way or another?

You see, I don't like change, especially when it involves my home. So the fact that Bea, The Wonder Cairn, and I are settled and comfortable in this tiny little "mid-century" home (with all of it's ghastly avocado green appliances and sinks) makes me happy. Yes, happy!

As a way to make my adjustment a bit easier, I jumped into the history of the area. A history buff at heart, it has been fun for me over the past years to see and learn the amazing stories that made this particular area what it is today. Yesterday, on my trip to Dundee, which is in the middle of wine country here, I stopped to read a historical marker that I have passed several times before, always saying that next trip I will take time to stop and see what it says. Seems the marker is located on the site of the Willamette Post which was established in December 1813 by employees of the Northwest Company, a Montreal-based fur trading company. The fact that it was rainy, windy and just 36 degrees as I stood reading the marker, I was once again in awe of the hardy people who called this area home more than 200 years ago! 200 years! The post was also known as Fort Kalapuya and was a site for trading with the local Indians. As more French-Indian families inhabited the valley, the two-room log cabin became the home of one family in 1830. As usual, a little discovery leads to a lot of research -- so moving on to learn more about the Kalapuyans. I guess the bottom line in all of this is the lesson that no matter where I go, I will find happiness and contentment -- it's not so much dependent on the "place" as it is about me.