On the Move: Witness Protection vs. Wanderlust?
A friend shot me an email and asked for our new address. I believe her exact words were, “Hey. Can I get your new address? Don’t worry. I won’t give it to anyone.” I laughed and responded, “We move a lot, but we’re not actually in Witness Protection. Share it with whom you like.” Then I thought about her comment and wondered if she really thought we were on the lamb.
To say, ‘we move a lot’, is a bit of an understatement. At last count, my wife and I have lived in more than our share of homes in 43 years together. We have lived in six countries, six states and countless towns and cities. Before meeting up with me all those years ago, my better half had lived in at least three other countries and I don’t know how many states and cities. As for me, I spent the first nineteen years of my life in Winterport, Maine. I had no dreams of traveling or wandering or becoming a gypsy. I thought I would grow up, grow old and fade away in the Great State of Maine. But that was a long time ago.
Our wanderlust fueled our travel bug more than we ever dreamed possible and over the decades we discovered our favorite places. Italy ranks at the top of the list. To be honest, Germany, Grand Cayman, St Kitts and Anguilla were not all that bad either. And of course, the United States will always be home and you know what they say, “There’s no place like home.” Despite so many places all being filled with breathtaking scenery and wonderful people, none of them seemed to pull on our heart strong enough to make us settle down and quit our rambling ways.
A few years ago we moved to St Petersburg, Florida and within days we began saying, “Best move ever!” We felt a draw and a homelike attraction to this revitalized Old Florida city right from the very beginning. The heat and the bay and the beaches are always pluses in our book. The marina is close-by and there are museums and entertainment and cafés and restaurants everywhere. The population is diverse and we immediately knew that life could be good here. "We finally found a place to settle down. I mean, I think this is a place we could call home.
But a couple years after that we found ourselves moving back to Grand Cayman for a half decade. These days we’re living in Asheville, North Carolina. There’s a good chance that this is where we will finally grow roots and rest for a while. Probably.
“Honey? Why is there a moving truck in front of the house?”
These days, when someone asks where I’m from, I just say, “Earth!” And then I stroll on down the road.
I’ll let you know when and where we go next.
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