A Traveler Looks at Home

“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”
  --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Lake Chelan - The Scout's hometown

These two vagabonds-soon-to-be-full-time-expats have been uncharacteristically focused on home this summer. We are packing up and preparing to say goodbye to our current home in Washington State so that we can spend more time at our home in Greece. We’ve interrupted our ‘slogging’ out of accumulations only to make a couple of quick road trips back to our hometowns on the other side of the state.

Past home, present home, future home

Our Kirkland home

The juxtaposition of all those homes – past, present and future – got me to thinking about how many times the average American moves in his/her lifetime. The answer I found was 11.4 times (as of 2015 statistics).  We seem to be way behind even if we include those fleeting years of college housing.

While searching out that information, another statistic, from a 2012 project at George Washington University, caught my attention:

“About 1.3 million American seniors now live in nursing homes.  70 percent of them rely on Medicaid to pay the bill, which means they are low-income or have otherwise spent down their assets. The average cost of a nursing home private room tops $83,000 a year.”

It put this transition of ours into perspective, reminding me that we are blessed to be young and healthy enough to grab this extraordinary opportunity to live differently for awhile in our home on the other side of the world.

“You can go other places, all right – you can live on the other side of the world,

but you can’t ever leave home."

                                                       -- Sue Monk Kidd, The Mermaid Chair

Living Differently

We’ve had interesting responses when we speak of our plan to live in Greece for a year. Some cheer us on, others say they’d seen it coming, and some are sent reeling at the news.
“But where will you live?” they ask.
“Greece” we answer.
“No, I mean where will you live here?” 
“Well, Greece for awhile . . .”  Beyond that we have no answer – we don’t know where we might end up. And that is the interesting part; we have options but no set plan, yet. (And that makes a lot of people uncomfortable.)

Washington State's Mt. Rainier towers over the Selah Valley 

Home

It’s a tiny word with huge connotations. It was change we wanted when we moved from our home in the heartland of Washington State to the hustle and bustle of the Seattle metropolitan area. The Scout was taking a job in ‘the big city’. I was leaving a good job and would be seeking employment. We didn’t have any close friends in the area. We spent days searching for a place we’d eventually call home.

Seattle skyline from Puget Sound (tallest bldg. is Columbia Tower, Smith Tower to the right)

We settled in a suburb with a small town feel to it. Somehow 30 years have blown past during which time we’ve worked at and retired from great jobs. This has become ‘our world’. One in which we are wrapped in the friendships of dozens of people.

I remember crying at the thought of our move to the big city – even though I wanted to do it – because we were leaving ‘our world’ and all that was familiar. I could cry now at the thought of the friendships and experiences we would have missed had we not left the comfort of our previous homes.

Our road trips back to Central Washington this summer were good reminders that contrary to the old adage, you can go home again. As we’ve traveled those old familiar roads we’ve met up with friends, many who’ve know each of us long before we knew each other. Visits with them are filled with old memories and laughter. . .stories and reminiscing about good times back in ‘that world’.

The Scout at Nefarious Cellars - site of his parent's old apple orchard - Chelan, WA

'In life, a person will come and go from many homes. We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us. Once entered, we never entirely depart the homes we make for ourselves in the world. They follow us, like shadows, until we come upon them again,

waiting for us in the mist.'
                                               – Ari Berk, Death Watch

The route to our hometowns takes us through the Kittitas Valley

It all has reminded us once again that we can have many homes in this lifetime and each will be a special chapter in our life’s story.  It really isn’t the where we are in the world, but the what we do with the experience there that matters.

“Home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling.”

                                             -- Cecilia Ahern, Love, Rosie

The Stone House on the Hill - our future full-time home

“Travel does not exist without home....If we never return to the place we started, we would just be wandering, lost. Home is a reflecting surface, a place to measure our growth and enrich us after being infused with the outside world.”
                                                       – Josh Gates, Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter

Summer scene in our present home: Kirkland, WA

An acquaintance asked if we were getting ‘scared’. . .at the thought of living in Greece. Since we’ve been doing it part-time for two and a half years, it isn’t like we are leaping into the unknown. I’ve chuckled over the question since it was asked and decided the answer should have been,  “No, we are scared of not going while we can.”

Summer scene in our future home: Agios Nikolaos, Greek Peloponnese

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”
                                                   – Basho Matsuo

That’s it from the home front – (yes, pun intended). We have some tales to tell you yet about France and Switzerland so I’ll be focused on those in the coming weeks.  Until then we thank you for your time and interest in our next adventure. We hope your travels are good ones.  We are curious, though, how many homes have you lived in and which were your favorites? Tell us your story in the comments below. . .

Linking this week with:

Through My Lens
Our World Tuesday
Wordless Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday – 
Photo Friday
Weekend Travel Inspiration