I want to go to beautiful

[rowanf]

SFBay-GrizzyPeak.jpg
Originally uploaded by rowanf.

It is the season of the cold and grey and rain. Of being shocked by static when you touch anything. Of never being quite warm enough for very long (thank all the Powers for heated waterbeds). Every year I have dreams of chucking it all and moving to the tropics.

But I suspect that I would actually be a very bad ex-pat. It isn't just the culture shock of being in a new place; it is losing all the ties in the old one. Not just the difficulty of long distance friendships, but all the little things that define one in a place - the pharmacist who knows your name, the waiter who brings you your tea without asking, etc. Then there are the millions of tidbits of local knowledge - where to find good products in any category, who to call for that plumbing emergency, what restaurants serve locally grown food, which shop to go to for different cuts of meat, etc. Then there is living in California where I don't have to stop "flying my freak flag". Where I can dye my hair fuschia if I want to or get a new tattoo. And there are Pagan and interfaith communities where I can find beloved covenmates and work with colleagues and peers on meaningful projects.

And I am pretty change-averse. Just ask my nearest and dearests who have to hear me bitch about every UI change some device or program comes up with. And then there is the dealing with a bureaucracy in a foreign language with different customs. I would really suck at that. I kinda sucked at it in the same language when I moved to England in the early 1970s. And I remember how homesick and out-of-place I felt sometimes, despite a childhood as an Anglophile.

So yeah, I know, uprooting my life would likely be disruptive and alienating as well as potentially enlivening and rewarding (and warm).

And yet, yesterday I was sitting for hours in the Toyota dealership waiting for my car and listening to India Arie albums on my iPhone. And oh, how I was touched by "I want to go to beautiful, beautiful, beautiful" and "living inside the glow". (I suppose I should say that, by definition, beautiful for me would be warm.)

The time is right
I'm gonna pack my bags
And take that journey down the road
Cause over the mountain I see the bright sun shining
And I want to live inside the glow
Yeah



No idea why the embed isn't working - http://www.youtube.com/embed/pOfhbLn8fw8

Comments

[angiereedgarner.livejournal.com]

I talked to ppl who did childhood time in tropics etc. and the deserts v. tropics expat preference seemed to come down to: bugs. Those that did not care for the bugs go for desert!

[rowanf.livejournal.com]

That makes total sense. I'm not much bothered by bugs, but I admit 30 years in California has spoilt me by their absence. :)