Where Am I?

This week’s newsletter in The Perennial Nomad: For Those Who Wander with Intent celebrates the irresistible urge to roam.

Sometimes it takes me awhile to remember where I am in the world. No, that’s not right. Let me rephrase it. I know where I am physically, but sometimes I forget where I am in the context of my life’s journey. Physically I am at this moment in Seattle, Washington, United States, on the planet Earth. That much is certain. However, my relationship with Seattle is not the same as it was when I was raised here in the 1950s and 1960s. Back then, Seattle was the world. I couldn’t imagine anywhere else being home. As I gradually made forays, first short and then longer, to other places, I began to realize that though Seattle had great relevance to my own personal background, it was only an interim destination – just as every place I have ever visited or stayed in for any length of time. In intervals during my decades of travel Mumbai was home, as was Kolkata and Chennai and Kathmandu and Bangkok and Auckland and Viterbo and Napoli and Termini Imerese and Athens and Thessaloniki and San Diego and Yakima. These, by the way, are places where I’ve actually lived, not just visited. At intervals I would return to Seattle to visit my parents, siblings, and friends, but during these layovers from one exotic locale to another I knew that I was not staying; I was only passing through.

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