There's A Reason People Live Where They Live

...although I have never understood why some people live in west Texas. That's one that has always stumped me.

What I'm saying is, everyone has their reasons for living where they do. Some are financially strapped and cannot move, some have partners in life that won't move and some are so buried in generations of family history that it would be counter-productive to move. Why start over somewhere else when three generations of the male hierarchy has owned the town funeral home? Get my drift?

My parents moved from various states before they landed in Florida, specifically a mysterious place they referred to as "Frog Hollow." They had lived in Oklahoma and Maine, and had briefly discussed Miami at one point, as that was where their honeymoon was. Point is, I grew up in Florida. The old Florida, not the beach-sand Florida. The Florida with huge granddaddy oaks with layers and layers of Spanish Moss dripping from them like primordial goo. My summers were five months long, of cold (50-degree) weather from October to January and February marked the beginning of spring. I never had a good hair day, never wore shoes if I didn't have to and I knew from birth that clear nail polish kills chigger bites. I took rain showers in the afternoon, fished in any available pond for pan fish with my little green Zebco rod and reel and chewed on sugar cane when I could get it. When I got older, trips to Daytona Beach on the weekend were mandatory for a couple of giggling teen girls, intent on getting a tan, with hair looking like Farrah Fawcett. Never got the tan nor managed to recreate the famous hairdo.

I wanted to live in England, with the damp and snowy winters, and the huge farmhouse around every turn. I wanted to live in Colorado, in an artist colony, painting mountains and landscapes and drinking expensive tea. I wanted to move to Oregon, where I would live by the rocky coast and throw pottery and make wind chimes. I wanted to live on St. Lucia in the Caribbean, where I could make a living carving coconut heads for the tourists, and ride home to my beach shack every day on my yellow bicycle. I dreamed of living anywhere but where I grew up.

Then I did move away, to many places.

But, I always came back. Back to Florida, with the smell of rain and moss and pine trees. Back to the land that formed my happy youth, my direction in life, my memories. And I came back for the last time in 2009, and I won't be living anywhere else.

I'll deal with the odd weather, the almost insurmountable heat, the biting things that attack you from out of nowhere. I'll deal with the natural disasters, the salt air and the lizards. This is what I know, and I'm comfortable with it.

Sure, I miss seeing Maine in the fall, with the gloriousness that is crisp, cold air and bright red leaves. I miss the smell of lemon in the air on the Isle of Capri in the spring. I remember how magical the first snow was in Kentucky, as I peered out from my studio windows and watched it gently fall from the sky onto the downtown streets. I miss the lilting chatter of Jamaican folk at the markets on a hot summer day.

But all these memories are places I can go, places I can visit. I'm home in my own paradise now, where a vacation is truly a vacation, not an escape. Adopting a life paradigm of gratitude for where one lives has a price though: peace. The price is peace. I am content.