When home becomes a stranger again

I was able to go up to Oregon for a friend's wedding this last weekend. The culture shock startled me, as I wasn't expecting any. I am reminded that just as L.A. is weird, Portland is weird as well, but in a very different way. I can't quite put my finger on what it was...perhaps the clothes, or the warehouse-feeling artistically graffitied coffee shop we stepped into, or the way people moved in the street. At any rate, it gave me a jolt to realize that the place that was home for four years could feel so foreign so fast. But it was SO good to see friends and to catch up and laugh together, and to store up big gulping memories of vineyards and tree covered hills stretching way out into the distance and wide open skies of gray/blue fresh air.