Coming home-ish

After six days of a hectic never-two-nights-in-the-same-place trip to Europe, I came back to Carrboro late last night. It's a little strange to come home to a place that doesn't yet feel quite like home, especially two weeks before moving to a new house. Everything feels very transient, the very thinnest layer of dust settles before we seem to pick everything up again and move around. It would be an understatement to say that this year has been unsettling.
Coming "home", I thought about the things I would look forward to. Mike was at the top of the list, and also numbers 2 through 5. It is Valentine's Day too. Then there was Jet and Emmett, rides over grassy expanses. The other things, like crab cakes and sweet tea on every menu, seemed so relative. When I go back to France, I look forward to stinky cheeses and chunky pates, unpasteurized heaven, but it doesn't make France home either. I haven't yet gotten woven into the fabric, and though I like how the fabric looks, I am as much an outsider here as I am in France, conversant but not "in". I miss being "in".
Blogging has been an interesting experience, I thank the anonymous commenters who leave me little notes from the larger cybercommunity. If anything this experience of picking up roots has been an exploration into the meaning of relatedness, both to people and place. As Pica said, I have found the butcher and the baker and the candlestickmaker, but now, well, I'm in the doldrums of winter in a strange place, surrounded by largely commodified relationships and loose affiliations. The journey inward is the larger part of my days, uncomfortable certainly. As determined as I was to settle here, I can't say for sure now that I will stay, but the journey will have been worthwhile, I think.