Our family and friends believe we have the best of both worlds. In the winter we live in our home on Florida’s gulf coast area (not on the water, but close to beaches, etc.) In the summer we go to our cottage in Michigan. Very unpretentious, it consists of living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, one bathroom (longing for a second one) and what I love most, a porch all across the front facing the lake. I call it “Peaceful Place”. We have family in Florida and Michigan. We are truly blessed. As for roots, my husband and I were both born and raised in Michigan. Even though we spend more time in Florida, Michigan will always be “Home” to me.

After reading through many of the comments, I find myself somewhat jealous of those who have moved around as adults. I was born in West Virginia and moved around a good bit, remembering so little of my childhood. After moving a good deal, we ended up in North Carolina, where my father told me, when I was in college, they decided to stay since they had “screwed up my life so much.” They decided not to mess up my younger siblings lives. I have lived in the same town now since I came to college. I keep thinking how I would love to be able to pick up and move some place new—-some place small and quiet where I could still teach yet enjoy relaxing where no one knows me and I could choose the activities in which I choose to get involved. But (and there is always a but), I have all this “stuff” from thirty-plus years of a former marriage, raising children, and my wonderful career in teaching—-how do I either move it all or get rid of much of it? I look at it all and it still seems valuable. So, I guess I stay in my little house that I bought after my divorce where I can continue to try to make my life new and exciting each day. The way I look at it—-I can always travel and rent apartments in any country, once I save the money up to do it.

When I was about thirteen years old , my family moved from the wonderful[ “Almost heaven” ] West Virginia small town of Williamson to the State of Delaware. That one move changed my life ,for I will always be grateful. The first year of that move , I longed for the hills and trees. But I saw the sunrise and sunset in the flat of Delaware. We had always traveled for vacations when we lived in W.Va and I am a small town woman of heart. I can speak to anyone and hear their stories and I can appreciate the homesickness of those who move to other places. Everyone can have a firm handshake and a sweet smile to make them feel at home in a new place. But we must always try ourselves to reach out to others when we move to new towns or new areas . The living in the small state of Delaware where you are just a little bit away from large cities and also really near the wonderful beaches was a big help to us in growing up there. Located where you could have it all, farmland and theatre and music and discovery of history. Even when we lived in West by God Virginia , we went to Luray caverns and the smokey mts and all the historical places all around and we visited New York city and Boston and Phildelphia and the wonderful beaches of North Carolina[ Myrtle Beach] So , this prepared me for the college years in Pa and the returning to a small town of Rhode Island [ not long island ,but Rhody] . This is the place that has the most roots for me now. After living here for over 20 years, I feel very rooted to the area. The people , the ocean and fishing and all the things that are important to me. Yes, the small town pettiness is what I ignore and just try to take each person and learn from them and go forward in my own way of hospitality and caring and living. The area is full of small ponds and rivers and the ocean . The best times for all of that is spring time and the fall,when all the crowds are gone and the life can be so very sweet with walks and talks and just enjoying what God has made for us to enjoy. { I do wish people would take their own trash and not just leave it at the parks,though} What happened to the personal responsibility to use and take care of our own places of enjoyment. Yes, roots are deep for me, but it is the people in our lives that make it so. Most of my family is still in Delaware and I miss them alot, but there are visits and phone calls and letters to write. The people in your life that mean the most ,out side of family , are the every day people you have coffee with and talk about politics and the weather and the other things that are important to you. All kinds of people and places to visit and also the beauty of nature to enjoy. Yes, it is time to smell the flowers and the plant the tomatoes and enjoy the sunshine and also to talk with that neighbor that is next door. { roots and living in the moment and love is what makes for a happier person} Being grateful and thankful too.!

right now, my family and i ‘reside’ in texas…we have ‘resided’ in texas 4 times since 1987..it is the home of my dad’s mother’s and father’s families, so have emotional ties to it..was born in wyoming, and have lived in the u s, and germany….have emotional ties to wyoming (can still pull my heart strings after all these years)…have come to a point that i can live about anywhere as long as i have a roof to keep rain off my head….

I was reared in the Midwest, then went to DC for college and stayed for 35 years. I had great apartments, many friends, worked in midtown and on the Hill. Then when my kid was ready for junior high, it seemed at opportune time to move to help take care of my mother and get out of the DC schools. I came to the suburbs of Phoenix. As a non-driver, I live in a little rancher with a kinda ratty koi pond and many species of plants that won’t live in the Sonoran desert. The schools were pretty much of a bust, although my sister and I still help take care of Mom, who lives in assisted care. It’s been 12 years. I work at home as a writer and gaze at giant cacti and volunteer grass that gets over six inches, attracting the lame police to discipline me. Because of the real estate mess, I am sort of trapped and can’t sell, even if I wanted to. Where would I go? Back to DC? Expensivo! San Francisco? Also spendy and too drably foggy (I am a sun lover now, one of the only good things about this place). I miss smart-sounding people who can match subject and verb numbers and never say, “He don’t know…” Of course, I did renew my passport, telling myself that if Obama or McCain gets in, it’s Canada or Cost Rica for me. Is that what Obama means by hope?

I fell in love with him and he’s from that place. It’s hundreds of miles from where I was born, grew-up, lived, worked etc. I fell in love with his place too. After 30 years I’m more in love with him than ever. I feel lucky. I’m in touch with some old school friends, a couple of them married and moved from one side of the town park to the other. It was a struggle with the culture shock but I feel happy. I wouldn’t want to live in the UK nowadays. I feel rooted here. My love is here, my family is here, we brought up kids here, I have enjoyable work here, we have made our home here with pets and garden, I’ve joined in w/community work, I’ve got good friends, it’s a pleasant city to live in, by the sea, overseas relatives like to visit here, the climate is great, the crime rate is low, there’s plenty happening. I feel I’ve done some good here and I feel it’s been good to me and mine.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I do love it here. But I have a recurring dream where I am living in my dream house. The house is magical. Out one door is my neighborhood in the Jersey shore where I lived as a child. Out another door is the place where some members of my family live. Out the front door is San Francisco. The house has many doors; one opens in a neighborhood of Paris. Anyway, I think I am actually rooted in several different places. Some of those places are where I can find the people I love. Some of those places are places that just give me goosebumps all on their own. I moved to San Francisco after it gave me goosebumps on a visit in 1969. [And it was not the frigid summer fog; it was a real sense of place.] Some places have had strange effects on me so that I keep returning and returning and once actually had to move there and live there for several years. When I first visited the place, I felt like I had remembered my future. I am not sure what this place magic really is. I do know that when I visited Esalen there was much discussion about how the actual location had been considered magical for several hundred years. Growing up, my family was somewhat nomadic, moving from one state to another from one job to another. At one point we lived in a neighborhood full of military families who were accustomed to packing up the entire household every two years and taking off for distant places. I am still impressed with people who manage to stay in one area all their lives surrounded by friends and family—but I am also a little puzzled. It is outside my own experience, rooted like a Banyan tree in many places.

In 47 years of marriage we have moved 20 times! We are both southerners — raised in Tennessee and Arkansas. After marriage and a terrific career for my husband we MOVED. Seems we moved every time I had decorated a house JUST the way I wanted it. We were first transferred to Conn. loved it there. All the antique places and the short distance to New York. Then our transfer to LA - too many people — just wasn’t for us - then to Kansas City - and on to St. Louis. We found the people in the midwest the greatest down to earth people we had ever known. Then to Minneapolis — loved the people, hated the snow. From there to Chicago — again, wonderful people — and I love Chicago. Then to Texas — Houston, Dallas and Austin. I love the “Hill Country” and we loved the Texans. From there to Little Rock Arkansas (finally close to home). We lived in a house I will always love — hung out over the river on a high bluff. Such serenity!! We thought we would stay forever. NOT!! Our next stop was Jackson, Ms — it was OK but we really weren’t there long enough to make any kind of opinion. The time to transfer again took us to Memphis, Tennessee. This time we were close to both families and it was so wonderful to have family and friends nearby. Again, we had the house of our dreams and thought this was IT. NOT! The day the van was loading I walked through that house and cried. However, I was happy because we were going back to Little Rock and our house on the bluff. (We had rented it out hoping we would be back.) To make the rest of the story shorter — we finally decided on our last move — we started our own business in Florida (East Coast) Northeastern area. We wanted our daughter to FINALLY have some stability in her life. We have been here since. I love it here — people from everywhere and a much slower lifestyle. We have purchased a condo in North Carolina and spend most of the summer there. (It’s too hot in Florida in the summer). We also go up there if we have to evacuate for a Hurricane. Another fact of life here. We are finally happy to be in one place. We loved all the wonderful people we’ve met over the years and still keep in touch! This really is a beautiful, wonderful country and each time we travel to other countries — we are always glad to be HOME!

I have lived in NYC for over 20 years and want out, badly. I have lived in Atlanta, Norfolk, Boston and some other cities before finally camping out here, but nowhere feels like home. I was raised in Upstate NY, and many unpleasant memories keep me from visiting there. What do you do when no place, really, no place, feels like home?