When I began this blog, something about water resonated with me. It wasn't just because I was moving to New Hampshire. It is because I find water healing. I knew at some point, I would move back. I have always vacationed in New England and I love the culture there! Family is everything and I longed to be closer.
Hampton Beach, New Hampshire
The two years I had the New Hampshire apartment were fun, but it wasn't my own home. Even though I was near one of my children, I longed to come back to the mountains, to my things, to my familiarity.
For many years now, the southern Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina have held me in their fold. Somehow, I found the courage to leave an empty twenty-eight year marriage and relocated here. My children had graduated from college, each one going toward their own adventure. It was time I went toward mine. And, I came here - to the Great Smoky Mountains. It has been a dream come true. My gratitude for the opportunity to experience this adventure overwhelms me. So does moving on to the next adventure. While excited, I am terribly sad to leave. Words can't describe what this beautiful area means to me. It will always be in my heart.
If you know me well, you know I have always been drawn to nature, especially the mountains. I grew up in Baltimore and spent a lot of my life around water. Whether it was rivers, ponds or the Atlantic, water was in my being.
Maybe it was a natural expression for me to be to continually called to the mountains, to the sea. I've been in the Smokies seventeen years. I hope I have that much time by the sea. But whatever it is, I am coming back to family. It has been a long time since I have lived near my children.
We've all grown so much in these seventeen years since I have lived in the south. Evn though, I have made countless trips to see my children, living close and having my own home near them is a dream come true. And now my child has relocated to Maine.
Portland, Maine
In the weeks and months to come, I will share some of my photos of the new house. It's a wonderful place. Great room, open concept, modern. Very New England and I love that.
I don't expect to be able to do the Utah trip I have dreamed about for years just now. Perhaps next year I can work it out. It is a culmination of a summer spent in a small Mormon town in Ephraim. and the life that ensued afterward. I was there at seventeen and have longed to go back. The town has changed immensely as have I.
While you can't go home again, you can revisit a place of your youth. You take your own good, loving thoughts and re-experience the area and yourself.
Can I really be turning seventy this fall?
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