The Road Taken
I got a slug of amigos moving away. I don’t think it’s necessarily because of me … but the statistical odds of it being just a coincidence are shrinking fast as glaciers for global warming deniers. Their reasons are many and varied. A couple of em, the cost of living here in Paradise is too dear.
Some have got in over their heads and they’re now ‘under water’. Banks are foreclosing, bankruptcies loom, time to beat a hasty retreat, start anew, hope for better days. Some are just looking for … well, something. New friends, new places, warmer climes. A change in latitude, a change in attitude. I get it. How I got here Back When.
Some are just Dead Ended. Jobs are scarce, times are tough, life seems short — so take a new tack, sail somewhere else. Go back to school, retrain, move in with friends or relatives, start over. Works for me.
It’s a mobile world. Although … I thought the South End was sort of stable. Calcified, actually. Mostly I thought we’d all ended up here mostly by happenstance, then never had the wherewithal to leave. Apparently, that was a poor hypothesis.
My other theory was that nobody chooses to leave Paradise. The grass isn’t greener than here anywhere, at least literally, but apparently not metaphorically. The Southwest seems to have a particular draw. The grass isn’t greener, but the sun shines longer. All the fescue lovers need is water.
I’ve moved two dozen times in my life. Lived in eight states, both coasts, New England and the Deep South, the Midwest and the Northwest. California. Michigan. Who knows, we might pony up the conestoga and do it again someday. Life, as the philosophers say, is Change. All you pilgrims hitting the road, good luck! I bet what you’re searching for is Out There. But … if it’s not, we’ll keep the drawbridge down and drain the moat. The road runs both ways.
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Let me know when you’re mowing twice a week up there in rain country. I’ll be chewing on sage twigs, having a iced tea in shade…