Gypsy Blood

At times, the lure of the open road and unvisited places can be very strong for me. There have been times I've sat at a red light, knowing I need to turn, but knowing equally that if I were to continue forward, straight, the road I was on would become the interstate, heading out, away, journeying to ways that lead to ways, places and destinations as yet unknown. Sometimes, I've sat, looking at the gas gauge, thinking of how many dollars I did or did not have in my pocket, and wondering how far I would get before I became stranded or long-trained practicality and responsibility made me turn back.

As a teenager, I was never certain where such urges came from. I only knew they were different than many people around me. I know my mother believed people should move every seven years, a belief she did not have the luxury to practice, and that she liked to travel at the drop of the hat, but even so, my mother always wanted a home base, a central location to return to, somewhere she could winter. For me, the idea of loading up the back of the vehicle with essentials and heading out to see what there was to see was enough. Other than a place to shelve my books, I didn't have a strong desire for a home. Not always. Sometimes, but not always. I eventually learned that this traveling gene came to me directly from my biological paternal grandfather, a man who chose to live life footloose and fancy free. The nomadic lifestyle was in my blood, the call of the open road that I heard echoed down through the generations to me.

Throughout my twenties, I bounced around from locale to locale, often boomeranging back to my parents' home. It became a common question, when the neighbors saw me, to ask, "Was I back or just visiting?" They never knew which it might be. Either was equally likely. Sometimes, it was a bit of both.

During that decade, I lived in Kansas, Illinois, and South Korea. I visited the highest point in Illinois, waded across the Mississippi River at its source, got lost around the delta where the Mississippi joined with the Gulf of Mexico, saw the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, climbed to the top of the Colorado State Capitol, slept in a hostel in Chicago, and did many other things. Then, as my twenties were ending, my father became sick and I had to let opportunities to go different places and see new things slide past. Well into my thirties again, the old restlessness has reasserted itself. There are things to do and places to visit. Other places. Not here. New experiences. One's I haven't even begun to imagine.

I'm ready for them again, but, unfortunately, circumstances and $3.50 per gallon gas prices are keeping me close to home at the moment. I'm trying to make up for this by looking for job opportunities -- it's getting to be that time again -- that will require me to move elsewhere, to somewhere new -- or put me in a position to be able to travel some. Or both. Ideally both.

I'm trying to figure out where my ideal "home base," as my mother would call it, might be. I've ruled out a monastery in Italy, but other places sound very appealing to me. If you could move, or travel, anywhere, where might you go?