I read the following short paragraphs recently. They resonated with me as I contemplate this season of my life, thinking about family, friends, what home looks like after decades of wandering:
“Beyond careers, roles, and responsibilities lies a new chapter—one filled with possibility, purpose, and profound transformation.
At this stage, something deeper calls. A yearning for richer connection. A more expansive kind of freedom. A clearer understanding of who we truly are—and how we can shape the world around us with wisdom, intention, and awe.
This is the journey of becoming. Of rediscovering meaning. And of stepping into the most powerful version of ourselves.”
The places that I have called home have connected me to the earth, to nature, to the mountains and hills, to trails and oceans, even city scapes, all important to my physical and mental well-being. From that corner of southeastern Washington that was my first home, to several stints in San Francisco, to a year in northern England, to the redwoods of California, to life as newly-weds in Manhattan and then to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains where we raised our boys, to time in Austin, Texas, Sonoma, California, Boulder, Colorado, Asheville, North Carolina, and most recently, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, each place was unique with its own physical beauty, its charms, the reasons to live there: we have been fortunate in each place.
But now, the reason for choosing a place to live, to call home, takes on a different character, something deeper–and that is connection with family and long-term friends, the invaluable essence of community and what gives this life purpose. I have tried to establish connections, to make an impact, to contribute to each community where we’ve lived, to make a home. Now, though, while still seemingly peripatetic, maybe perpetual wanderers, it’s time to return to northern California to renew the connections, to see family more frequently, to complete the migration that was started so many years ago.
I look forward to more frequent gatherings with my sisters, to shorter flights to see my brothers, to reconnecting with my California and Washington friends (but unfortunately, longer flights to the boys and their families), all as I try to become the best person I can be.