There was a moment the other day when I was visiting a property here on
the coast that made me want to pull up a chair and sit down for a spell.
I see lots of different homes and usually I try to tuck away one feature that might be special about a particular listing.
Once in a while, even in the heat, or maybe especially in the heat, I get caught thinking about what it would be like to sit and talk with the people who first lived in a place.
The cozy spot in the picture has been around for twenty five years. It started as a raw lot, filled with trees and brush. A lot of hard work made it a comfortable home for a husband and wife who in this particular case took the risk of moving to a place far way from where they spent most of their adult lives.
There were not many year around residents when they moved. I am sure they faced plenty of challenges, but I am willing to guess that those challenges ended up adding richness to their lives.
I know people who have moved lots of times and people who have barely left the area where they were born. I don't know that one group is wiser or happier than the other. They are just people who have different priorities.
I do know that it takes some courage to pack the the bags and move to a new spot. You have to ride your dreams to get to a new place. Once you are there, the only way to really make it a home is through hard work that may not resemble the dream.
Yet most new comers persevere because going back does not fit their personality.
When I moved to Canada to raise cattle, it was a great adventure filled with lots of back breaking work. I never dreamed that I would come back to states working for a computer company. Apple Computer did not even exist when I moved to Canada. A move sets in motion wheels of change that cannot be predicted.
When visiting online forums I see lots of folks who spend time asking questions about a new place. Sometimes they are very serious, and just looking for the right kind of information to motivate themselves to move. They need the right neighborhood or a certain kind of house.
Then there are a few folks who ask endless questions looking for the perfect place without ever realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect place.
Actually maybe that is wrong. If there is a perfect place, it is up to you to make it so.
Some people do not really have that spark which drives you to actually pick up stakes and moves. That reluctance is understandable. Moving is filled with unknowns and has plenty of stress.
It is hard moving from an area where you have made great friends and perhaps raised your kids.
I do not know what separates the people who will gamble on a move from those who dream but never act. I think I was born with a little wanderlust.
However, I know that meeting and working with people in an area before I move has always eased the strain. As I find good people, they fill in the gaps that Google with its clever daily intelligence or glue for the modern world cannot.
Talking to people and sharing your worries is hard if you do not know people well, but it is a way to get to know people well.
I enjoy meeting people, helping them, getting to know them, and sometimes letting them listen to my problems. It helps a lot when moving.
In the end I am thankful for those people who have been willing to try a new place, to hack some of the brush back, to find those secret waterways, and to populate some of the more challenging spots in America.
Without the people who could dream of the beauty and actually have the courage to bet their dollars on finding it, we would never have gotten to enjoy some of American's best spots.
If I had a choice of talking to someone no longer around, I would rather sit back on the porch and talk to those who lived their dreams rather than who lived in a dream.
While moving anywhere in American today is a lot easier than it was 25 years ago there are still challenges. Technology has made it much easier. Access to the Internet is in places I would never have guessed.
Services like those on this map make even those of us who live just beyond the reach of the big box stores pretty comfortable.
Comfort is all relative. Some move to find it. Some do not move to keep it. Others find comfort just in the act of moving.
Sitting on the warm porch in the picture brings back memories to me of another time, and another place when I was surrounded by family.
It was a good time, we were young and the memories are still fresh of those great days in the fifties and sixties.
]Perhaps I do so well in moves because not only do I haul the old memories with me, but I am pretty good at creating some new ones.
