Coming Back Home – Where is Home?

Yesterday I read a post at another traveler’s blog discussing where home is. Being a nomad means we have no home in the traditional sense of the word. Our last home was a rental in Roseville California. Now when asked where is home, I answer, here – where we are right now.

Right now, today, home is in Mesa Arizona. Home is where ever my husband and daughter are at. Monday home will be in Roseville California through March 20th. So some may think I’m going back home. Yet California doesn’t feel like home anymore.

When we return to Mesa Arizona on March 21st, it will feel like I’m coming back home. At least for a while. Until we go ‘home’ to Rice Lake Wisconsin where Joel’s mom lives. Joel was born in Wisconsin so he’ll be going home in yet another sense.

Home here in Arizona for the past 7 weeks has been great. Our hosts and friends, the Wilson’s, have made us feel right at home. We all pitch in together to shop, cook, and clean. We enjoy watching movies together at the end of the day. Joel and Terry, both musicians and bass players, loved participating in FAWM during February and creating new songs.

Fiona right now is making peanut butter cookies with Virgie. She loves both Terry and Virgie and they have made her feel very special while we’ve been here.

We’re very grateful to the Wilsons for hosting us these past 7 weeks. We’re happy they want us to come back to house sit in March while they’re on vacation. It will be nice to have a place to ourselves for a couple of weeks in a place where we feel comfortable and AT HOME!

Montreal 1st Leg: Roseville to Phoenix

Official time out: 7:30am PST, only 30 minutes later than planned. Good thing we woke up two hours early. About a 13-hour drive.

It almost fit. We’re leaving (besides what’s already in storage) four small boxes and two folding tables. If we weren’t taking an extra bass guitar and a microwave for friends we’re staying with in Phoenix, it would have fit. If I had it to do over again, I’d do it over again. Friends mean more than stuff.

The two bits that hurt are leaving my early 70s Ludwig snare drum, and all the DVDs. I’ll survive until December, when they’ll fit.

Amazing thing is, we called it, spot on. If we hadn’t chosen to deliver some stuff for beloved friends, we would have exactly perfectly fit everything we wanted to bring along into the van.

For totally winging it, not even having a dry run to pack, stuffing it all in for the first time on the morning we leave our old life for the new, well, it’s simply amazing.

Nomads wing it. That’s us; winged nomads.