We don’t choose the place of our birth; we are “native to wherever” by circumstance, sometimes not even by our Mother’s choice. But later in life “home” becomes our choice, it’s different for all of us and several people picked up on my comment earlier on this being where I live, not my “home” so I decided to explore it a bit more.

Some of us are nomads on the sands of time, we seek the unknown, searching from place to place for the home we’ve never known or found. Being a scifi fan I sometimes think of it as the city at the edge of time, the mythical place we seek in our dreams with streets of gold, the place where all things are possible to us and where we will find solace from our lifetime of searching. I once wrote a poem about it 360west.com/ETHERIA.htm

When I made the decision to move to Mexico it seems logical and after much prayer it continued to seem the next step in the great adventure, not to necessarily become a permanent residence because few things are permanent to me at this chapter of my life. A friend who has traveled the world has said it seemed a huge step to just pack up and leave “home” and move to another country – I never thought of it that way, I guess if I had considered it in those terms maybe I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, but like always being able to go home to Mom; I knew Texas would be waiting to take me back.

At the moment it’s Saturday morning and I’m listening to country oldies on KVET from Austin, TX my “home”. This became a ritual many years ago as I enjoyed the broadcast from 5–10am each Saturday morning, they play recordings back to, and before, my first memories of music as a kid in Nebraska. It’s a thread that continues to tie me to a place and time that will one day again be my final “home”. The miracle of the Internet makes this music possible even though a bit technically challenging but that’s another story.

The dictionary says: Home, an environment offering affection and security; "home is where the heart is"; "he grew up in a good Christian home"; "there's no place like home". This being the day before Mother’s Day I still call Denver home at times as it’s where my mother is. At 93 my Sister calls her the Energizer Bunny; she just keeps going and going as did her father who lived well into his 90’s (which scares the heck out of me – 30 more years of this for me?). One day when she is gone Denver will no longer be “home” as there are no other ties except in yearbooks, scrapbooks, pictures and memories of growing up and I can still drive around the city without a map remembering times past, but it’s not really “home” any more, it was just where I was during that chapter of my life.

I am “native” to Nebraska, many of my family are still there, some apples didn’t fall far from the tree. Some remain on the land they were born to, having spent a lifetime tilling the soil and helping to feed the world, they know the truth of home; it is where the heart is. I once asked my cousin if it didn’t drive him a bit crazy plowing the same furrows in the same field year after year after year, he just smiled.

Native has different meaning to different places, my Son was born in Louisiana, I’m not sure we’ve ever been able to satisfactorily explain to him he’s a native “coon - - -“. Mainers have a philosophy, if your Mother went across the line to New Hampshire to get a quart of milk and you “arrived” and they immediately took you back to Maine and you’ve never even thought of leaving the State, even for a visit, you’re still not a “Mainer”.

I wasn't fortunate enough to be a native Texan, but it was where Chris and I found home. Like many of us I had the wanderlust after leaving school and headed to Arizona, California, on to Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois and finally Texas. Chris was born in Japan, spent time in Germany, Texas, the Chicago area, a short time in Oregon and back to Chicago where we met, both searching for “home”. We moved to Texas in ’80 where we were married and where we will be buried, we had finally found “home” and more specifically Lakeway where we built the place we called home and lived in longer than any other for both of us.

Finding home is not a thing that happens overnight like Fall in the High Country where suddenly one morning you can smell the air and almost touch the breeze which carries the scent of the changing season. Texas was new and different like all places, but the people who always define a place were also different; in an elevator they’d speak to you, on the street they’d make eye contact and smile, they were different, it felt like home even though we’d only just arrived. One day we realized we’d found the home each of us had sought consciously and unconsciously all the years of our lives. A few years later we found Lakeway near Austin and that became the anchor of our lives. Even in hard times when I was offered jobs in other places there was no decision to be made, only a polite “thanks, but no thanks”.

Home is a place that draws you back inexplicably, a place with which you have affinity, the truth be told I hated Texas and Texans having grown up in Colorado - or so I thought. I avoided the place like the plague for years, job offers, even an attempted forced transfer to support the F111 project in Fort Worth were unsuccessful, but my destiny, my home, was waiting patiently while I floundered around other places which were never to be home, only places I lived for a time. I enjoyed all of them in some way, but they were never my anchor, they don’t call to me from a distance, drawing me back.

During many years I traveled a lot, flying from one end of the country to another and I always said three prayers, the first when we began our takeoff roll “Dear Lord, be with me today and don’t let me get into something the two of us can’t get out of together” and when we were flying home, often at night, I swear at 30,000 feet I could feel crossing into Texas and I’d say “thank you Lord for bringing me home once again” because I knew that even if we crashed I’d be on home soil, not scattered across a frozen Iowa corn field with 150 other folks I didn’t know. Finally as we were about to touch down I’d say “please Lord put your hands on the hands of the man in the cockpit and sit us down soft as a butterfly with sore feet” – it always worked.

There was one more prayer; each day as I turned into Lakeway I thanked Him for bringing me home once more to that place and all the days we were privileged to share that place we called “home”. I always shut off the radio and opened the window, whether 100 or 30, raining, blowing, I wanted to fully take in the beauty and privilege of that place, it was home.

I may have, and most likely will have, more places to live depending on how much change has been deposited in my earthly parking meter. I’ll continue to explore the remaining time in this life I have been given and enjoy the places I’ll be privileged to live and while this is the place I live at the moment, my domicile, it will never be my home, there is only one home and it will draw me back one day where I’ll remain always.