If I Were to Move -

A very long time ago, about 35 years or so, I wanted to live in Wyoming. I am not sure why I wanted to live there, except that is was on the opposite coast of where I am now, and remote. It seemed like a good place in which to get lost.

Maybe it had something to do with Devil's Tower, and the movie that featured it (whose title escapes me now, but it had that theme, you know do do do do do). Close Encounters of the Third Kind! That's it. (Yes, I googled it.)

But anyway, I thought about living in Wyoming. Finding some piece of property somewhere and maybe homesteading. This is a joke because I am not a physical person, I'm a sedentary person, and the idea of me trying to chop my own wood or raise the chickens I am highly allergic to is ludicrous. But when you're 15 I suppose you don't think very clearly. The world is ahead of you and the days when you will be old seem far away indeed.

I may have been driven through Wyoming when I was 12 years old, when my family took a cross-country trip to California. But I am not sure we went through that state. If we did, we did not see anything that I remember.

I did not end up in Wyoming. I am six miles from where I grew up, living along the same bus route I took when I was elementary school, with a guy who rode the bus when I did (though he was four years older and didn't know I was alive).

Now, I would not move to Wyoming. It would be too cold and I am older and have bones that react to any change in the barometer. I am happy where I am but if something were to happen to my husband (knock wood), I would have to move. I could not keep the place running alone.

So where would I move to? I would like a college area, I think. Maybe I would head up towards Christiansburg and Virginia Tech, but I think it more likely that I would look toward Charlottesville and the University of Virginia. The Tech campus, with its gray stone buildings that seem more military than educational, does not attract me. UVA, though, has older brick structures that feel more like home.

Perhaps I would take a look at Lexington. It seems to bustle. There's Washington and Lee there; it's a college town, too.

Or maybe I would stay right around where I am, find me an apartment, and try to settle back down. It is hard to know what one would do under certain circumstances. Roanoke is not necessarily a "college town" but there are two colleges in it - three if you count the community college. That I do not avail myself of the college offerings at the moment is my own stupidity.

I would not go further south, though the warmer temperatures sound enticing. I would miss the mountains too much, I think. I do love my blue ridges.

Of course, there is always Firebaugh, CA. Wouldn't it be fun to move to a city that is named after some distant relative?

Where would you live, if you had to make a new choice?