Besides the barn I share with my new mouse friend Moe back home, I also live in a city nestled in the mountains on the Canadian border. The city is surrounded by farmland and forests, a strange gem in the wilderness.

My third story apartment rests right on the border of the college campus, across from a well known deli. Someone at work referred to it as the “weird neighborhood”. How fitting.

The houses go from purple to pink to royal blue. One of my neighbors lounges out front with his Siamese cats, the college boys below me use the front porch as a stalking perch, and once during a thunderstorm there were people out on metal hooked hammocks, insane.

The Co-Op brings a plethora of different people, they make amazing meals. And Church street is always bustling with financiers and tourists. I walked down that way this morning to bask in the local bookstore.

Walking back from the bookstore, I thought about this interesting place I’m in. Where the men approach me speaking French, and on the weekends people tend to their paths in the forest and fields of peace. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve walked through a portal to a strange land that is now in some ways my home.

I’m only just branching out towards my goals, and for now, life is definitely worth being in these odd and new experiences for.