 |
| House move, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. December 2011. Credit: Mzuriana. |
Gosh, the year in Mobile, Alabama, is - as is usual in my temporary residences - flying by!
Only three more months remain for my tenure in Mobile!
And as is also usual, when I landed in Mobile, I wondered: Is this where I'll settle? It's so pretty! What a lovely location! No cold winters! Interesting people! A complicated place with so much history and inter-cultural textures.
And as is also usual, as time has passed by, I love the place, but I'm not ready to marry it and settle down here.
And as is typical about this time, future adventures begin to call my name.
I do have a sure thing and a maybe thing for the six months following my Mobile exit:
The sure thing: To Chez Katherine in Missouri for three months, and hang with my descendants and friends there.
The maybe thing: After Missouri, to New Mexico, to hang there with friends for three months, give or take.
But after that ➡ these are speaking to me for 2023:
- Peace Corps (assuming I'd make the cut)
- Long-term volunteer stint at a national park or national monument (at a gig that provides lodging)
- Deep East Texas - for two good reasons: It's my legal home base and it's close to Houston, which still calls me for the zydeco community, so I can go there on weekends, and not be too close to Houston's trauma tax.
- In a fascinating turn of events, all of a sudden I got a "call" to Kitsap County, which lies between Seattle and Olympia National Park. Whoa, I did not see that coming. Purely by chance, I encountered a new acquaintance from Kitsap County, and I poked over there via Google Maps. It has all of the things that attract me: Not-cold winters, complex history and intercultural demographics, and geographic beauty. Plus it butts up against Canada! The Pacific Ocean. Reminds me of Northern Exposure! Washoe and Roger Fouts! Is it affordable? I don't know. I have zero interest in Seattle or Portland, which may be too close for affordability.
I still long for a reprise road trip to Alaska, a 2020 plan quashed by COVID. ... I'm thinking to put that on the shelf until 2024, when my youngest descendant turns 16, which is the same birthday year that my daughter and I went on the first trip.
As always, "In ignorance, I await my own surprise."
Where Next? posts from the past:
March 2021: Where Next for 2021-2022
May 2020: Relocation: COVID-19 Unfolding, Part 20: Where Am I Going?
COVID Interruptus: 2020: From Tucson: Plans --> Pouf! "I don't have a fucking clue."
April 2019: Tucson: House Hunters, Part 1
September 2017: My Next Home for a Year: Ferguson, Missouri
December 2016: Rootless Relocation: El Paso, Texas
February 2015: Relocation: Plan A, Plan B, and A Lie
February 2014: Relocation 2015: Plans A, B, and C
November 2013: Rootless Relocation 2015: Planning Ahead, Maybe Too Much, But It's Fun
September 2013: Rootless Relocation: Where I'm Going Next
February 2013: Relocation 2013, Part 1: Mexico! [Spoiler alert: Future Fail!]
November 2012: Glimpse of the Next Place I Live?
Where it began:
On a marshrutka on a rainy, spring day in 2012, the thought came to me:
If I want, I can spend one year in a different place in the world for the rest of my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment