Where does your heart and soul belong.....
These days it is quite common for people to not only travel to distant places and foreign lands, but often relocating far from where one was born. Or sometimes people come back home, where ever that is, to be back home again.
The possibilities are endless with travel being so easy, instead of horses and wagons in earlier days, or even stage coaches. Now we have planes and trains and automobiles. How the world has changed, but sometimes you long for a simpler life.
Where would you live, if given anywhere on the planet? Would it be in some far exotic land? Would you live in a tent, an igloo, a yurt, a cabin, a palace, a cottage, a mansion, a trailer? Would you live in a city or the country, in a desert or on a mountain, in a valley, on a river, stream, lake or pond? Would you live on the ocean or a cliff high above the world below? In a forest? A prairie, a meadow, a field, an apartment building on Park Avenue? A penthouse?
I know I recently wrote an article asking about why people live where they do and I still wonder about it. If you were born and grew up in a small village, when you leave do you carry the customs, the language, the ways and means of that village with you? And when and if you go back to where you born, do you bring with you what you have learned and seen and experienced elsewhere in the world?
And again I ask the question why do we feel better in certain places than others?
The thing that prompted me to visit this again was when I came across an article last week about buying a whole village in Northern Spain, it peaked my interest. The article said many towns were being abandoned because of hard times in the economy. The one pictured in the article had just a few houses in it. I imagined friends and family occupying many of the houses, creating a little community. Or you could make it a retreat, a spa, a healing refuge and accommodate guests.
It was on the coast of the Bay of Biscay on the Atlantic side, not far from my brother's place in St. Jean De Luz in France. So I would already have family nearby.
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| St. Jean de Luz |
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| Mon Frere St. Jean de Luz |
The only thing is I don't speak Spanish, having learned Latin and French in school. And I am not ready to retire and make a big move, but it is good to dream.
There are many places I would still like to visit. I know that France agrees with me very well, but there are still parts to explore, like Normandy in the north, where many of my ancestors came from. There is also Denmark, especially Copenhagen, where my grandfather was born.
I've been to Germany, but found the land somewhat hard and intense. Holland was a bit softer and more cheerful, but I regret I was too early for the tulips. And I got a good recipe for apple pie while there!
I never made it to Dublin, but will get to Ireland someday. I have been to London many times, but don't know if I could actually live there. I stayed near where Charles Dickens lived, one of my favorite authors. In the shadows and in amongst the crowds on the sidewalks and cars and buses in the streets you could almost hear the whispers of Dickens' characters, as though they had actually lived. Were the characters real people? Or were they just caricatures of people living at the time in a great city? A place that has much history, and palaces and kings and queens, of history playing out.
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| Me at Merlin's Cave |
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| Climbing down the Steps of Tintagel |
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| Tintagel |
Israel was both mountain and desert, and cold especially at night. I experienced my first sand storm, and there was sand and grit everywhere. In March I was cold, even during the day. I traveled to the Dead Sea and floated on its green waters. I got to see what life would be like in these small villages. At night there would be campfires and storytelling, while in the distance other villages were being bombed. We were told it was just fireworks!
I have been to the Caribbean islands, with the warm turquoise waters and the island of Bermuda out in the ocean all alone. And to Saint Martin, where I sailed on a catamaran all day long, returning at night into the glorious sunset.
I have been across the U.S. to many places, but have yet to see the Grand Canyon, the Redwood Forest, Yosemite and Yellowstone Parks. I have not seen Niagra Falls. So many places to see and explore.
Yet where does one feel comfortable? Where does one truly belong. I think, like me, if you can, you travel to other places, just to see and feel and compare. And ask yourself where you feel you belong. Only you have the answer!
Maery
