It is cold today. It is a thirty-four-degree difference from the beautiful and current climate of Southern California. There is a windy cold-snap that is unusual for the area at this time of year and the bright sunshine is deceiving. My new location is Nashville and my reasons for this relocation are personal and many. I felt that the creation of a bubble for stories and art was essential to maintaining my wits outside of my familiar geography. I find that my new private work space in the middle of nowhere serves its purpose, but the lure of the open road and of places unknown is too difficult to ignore. I went for a drive outside of my private bubble with no clue where I was or where I was going. The short cruise to anywhere rapidly evolved into a full-blown tour of the Midwest. Over six-hundred miles of unfamiliarity, and a blending scenery that left me with bland visitor centers off of poorly maintained two-lane highways along with my own rapid thoughts.
My thoughts began to wander back to California, and whether or not I was going to be able to accept the surroundings outside of my new bubble. I chose the perfect time to relocate; spring and summer are both in the works. As a Californian, it appears that I need constant sunshine and crowded noise to function. Spring and summer are preparing to deliver in Dixie, but eventually the leaves will fall and the miles of untouched nature will die in the transformation from cheerful warmth to a cold, gray melancholy.
Location is the primary objective for anyone in real estate. With stories of mystery in mind, a looming mystery of individual location lurks in the background.
Leaving my bubble vacant for a moment, the open road leads to a reconnection with family, and a personal exploration of what it truly means to pursue new goals in a brand-new environment with absolutely no one around -- at least not anyone familiar. My thoughts and emotions regarding location and the comfortability within, and its possible importance to the individual spirit, become increasingly erratic. I can only keep driving -- pushing further away from the new location while calling it a holiday. The return came after an eventual 1,296 miles in a circle around the Midwest. The cold snap was gone, post cards were stamped, everything was exactly as I left it except for an unexplainable sense of urgency in the air that was not there before -- a need to make a tangible point of the sudden up-rooting.
It is so quiet and very tranquil in the peaceful town twenty minutes outside of Nashville. Community activity moves a little slower, the birds make commotion at normal hours and I am always taken aback by the random salutations of the friendly people who share my community. Southern charm, they call it. There are rolling hills, highways through mountains and large lakes with bathing suits and boating, but it is just not the same. I keep telling myself that the point is for it not to be the same. I remind myself that it was I who decided it necessary to move closer to loved ones and to complete my anticipated works in a reclusive Hemingway fashion. Location is more than the little blue dot on the map in your phone. Location appears to be something internal, something personal beyond literal maps. The little blue dot only informs you of where you are, not where you are going. Location is a state of mind, content in the standing and looking towards the horizon.
The sun sets west -- everyone knows that -- and I stare in that direction long after the sun sets. I suppose it is because I know that it will still be two long hours before anyone on the coast has the view that I just had.
I sought new possibilities and personal opportunities in a new location, and I still could not help wandering. My feet are planted firmly in a foreign land but the location of my mind migrates slowly, following the sun westward. My location settings are located and locked, and the little blue dot is not going anywhere. An introductory time period in this new location will reveal whether or not my mind will settle with my feet, or continue to follow the sun. My current location will remain somewhat the same, consistently making small and normal changes all by itself. What then?
I understand that the question of "what then?" will come in time with experience after the fact. What I find most troubling is the anguish that comes with trying to answer the question, "What Now?"
