Home

Tomorrow I'm moving home. This will be my last post from the US for a very long time. I've lived in a lot of places and there are things I appreciate about each of them. And despite the challenges I've faced this last year, I still believe that you can be reasonably happy anywhere. There are so many wonderful places in this country and in this world one can call home. Sometimes I wish I could experience all of them. I wish there was enough life to live, to live it in many different places. Not just for a year or two, but for enough of a lifetime to dig deep. There are so many things about so many different places that I'm drawn to.

I sometimes dream of . . . living on the north coast of Washington watching the lights of Victoria flicker at night across the water sharing evening walks with a dear friend, living in a barn conversion in rural France surrounded by fields of sunflowers and lavender, living in a colonial outside of DC through the beauty of spring blossoms and glory of fall colours, living the American dream in suburban Texas in my dream house with a pool eating Tex Mex every night, living in Singapore enjoying a tropical and culturally diverse corner in southeast Asia, living back in Orange County in a community of friends we love, living in small-town Vermont learning to manage harsh winters and appreciating spring with greater anticipation, living in Paris where my neighbourhood boulangerie and patisserie wonder when I miss a day, living in the desert heat of Arizona where the backyard pool is really just another room in our house, living in Manhattan taking in every taste, sight and sound around every corner, living in a small village in Italy where we shop the local piazza stalls and take evening passeggiatas, living in a craftsman on Bainbridge Island learning to appreciate a slower paced life that island living enforces, living on a pretty street in southern Indiana where my kids see their cousins so often they become best friends, living in Boston's Beacon Hill and taking my runs around the Charles River . . . and this list goes on. It may sound a little ridiculous, but I truly do feel a twinge of sadness when I think of never living in each of these places.

And then there's London. You can be happy anywhere, but you won't always fall in love. And even though there are countless things about life in London that annoy the crap out of me, I still love it. And it feels like home. So while tomorrow will find us jet-lagged and facing the arduous task of getting settled abroad (again), I will be home. I can't say I've loved everything about being back near my hometown this last year, but I am very grateful that it gave us the opportunity to see so much of my family these last 12 months. I haven't really lived near my family most of my adult life, and mostly I've been okay with forging a life of my own with my own little family, creating my own existence in a world apart from that which I originated. But this last year I grew to appreciate my family so much more. I love them dearly, and I'm so glad we had this year to be close. Tonight my house is empty and our bags are packed. London is calling.