...the true New Yorker's secret belief that people living anywhere else had to be, in some sense, kidding. John Updike
We have an overabundance of talking heads droning on about the security of America's T-notes, the safety of our people that Obama is risking, and Pakistan being an unruly nuclear bearing state, Washington is having to keep an eye on..If I wasn't so blessed to be an American, all of the negative focus could have put a damper on my Sunday morning.
This is a great city, but an even better country.
This summer at gas prices peak, my husband and I loaded up our vehicle with a tent fit for two, an igloo cooler, hiking shoes, and plenty of wide open road music. We drove 7,000 miles across the gorgeous roads of our great nation, the United States of America, taking every two line highway and scenic byway that came our way. A part of us went in search of a new home. To be inspired. To find something other than the life we were living. But mostly, to embrace another adventure.
We journeyed through whiskey stills and Redwoods, down the Pacific Coast Highway and up into The magnificent Rockies. We stayed with my uncle who's made his home in the crazy mountains of Montana for the last 40 years. Visited with my brother-in-law who set up shop and made a family in Minneapolis. Slept on 104 degree rocks in the Mojave Desert. Meandered on an abandoned and revived Route 66 with history screaming from the cracked asphalt. On the outskirts of the Grand Tetons of Wyoming to the eight lane sprawl surrounding Los Angeles many are dropping their anchors, investing their hearts, and building lives around their towns.
Some spread their wings and fly, some never set sail. It takes all kinds.
I admire the contentment people feel in keeping their feet planted. I don't relate.
I'm the former. Always looking for another hook to hang my hat...Atlanta has been my home base for 23 years. But I've left "home" all the while, lived in an old communist dorm in Prague, a converted tool shed in St. John, a three bedroom college flat in Australia, had beautiful views, stared at stucco walls, endured crazy roommate antics, carried my possessions in my old Trooper, and cooked in kitchens every shape, size and cleanliness.
Never leaving my roots in the soil, all in the spirit of another peak experience.
New York City is just that, a dose of paper on my tongue that is opening doors and providing new fodder in this condition we call reality.
Everyday I am meeting more people who picked up to come here for a career challenge, a unique opportunity, a frightening endeavor, a lifelong aspiration, a new shade of green.
I don't believe that home has to be where you were born, where your parent's live, a four wall room filled with material possessions.
Home is where the heart is. And right now. New York is my town.
"Main Street isn't main street anymore.
No one seems to need us like they did before." JT
Is it hard to find a reason left to stay?
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