Live on an island outside of Seattle in a bay called Port Madison. Built the home 25 years ago when the children were young. I love this place.

I live in and love New Orleans…have lived there for the past 30 years. Even though it is not the same place since Katrina, it’s the only place I want to be. That said I have been living and working in NYC for the past 6 months due to family obligations. And it has only strengthend my need to go home to NOLA as soon as I can.

I live in Crestone Colorado. I thought i would live here for the rest of my life. But that’s not going to happen. I had a heart attack at the age of 60 last year and I’m just not adjusting to the altitude here in the San Luis Valley. The floor of the valley is 8000 feet and I live in the foothills above with a beautiful view of the San Juan Mountains 60 miles across the valley and a close up and personal view of the Sangre de Cristo mountains just above my house. Life changes sometimes very fast. I’m selling my house, if any one is interested.

Born and raised in Washington, DC and Fairfax County (VA), I moved to Florida at age 50. After twelve years there I could not wait to get home — Home to Virginia! Now I live in a small college/tourist town in Tidewater VA. Little traffic, slow pace, polite friendly people. This is home - and this is why I Love Living Where I Live!!!

I recently bought a condominim in a small New England Town. I have always been a renter and I am semi-retired . This was a huge step. I love being a country mouse. I overlook a lake, and have actually had to stop my car to let a family of wild turkeys cross the road. Even they have a right to get to the other side!!!!! I love it here, and never want to leave. When I want hustle and bustle, I either go to Boston or New York. Basically, give me the simple life!!!!!

This rather addictive website (kudos to all wOw women, and the readers/posters) seems to ask all the questions that swirl around my mind these days too (China, books, living ) … maybe just the zeitgeist of a certain age group … WHY do I live in New York City … all the way East on 14th Street, a little brownstone co-op island overshadowed by a power plant, Stuyvesant Town and the projects in back … not a particularly pretty site, but very much ‘home’ inside … these past 20 years! I am still stunned that I only recently figured out it has been this long … Why: love, work, life - it all happened so fast … Why I live in NYC and love it: for all the obvious reasons - Whoopi and Sheila said it so well, and it even seems that some of the wOw women are part of ‘my New York’ in some ways: can’t live without Liz’ column, learned a lot about my new world thru the humor of Lily, Candace and Whoopi, and Lesley’s TV news and Joan Juliet’s writing … well, I even worked for Sheila a couple of times … so very New York … and then of course there are the NY Times, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair … I loved being a (late)married woman here, with a busy working and social life, having my own company for a while … I now love walking the East Village alone, and that it is such a bizarre, multi-faceted village (my ‘tourists’, ie. guests/visitors, never get that NY-village thing), I love walking to the Union Square market, zig-zagging thru the E.V. to the Bowery, on to SoHo and downtown, crossing over to the Chelsea galleries on the 14th Street bus which now end-stops at the Gehry building…, zipping uptown (although I do hate the subway …) and then walking to all the museums (free times, memberships, and, yeah! the great ‘pay-as-you-wish’) and the park, still awed by the tall buildings, (and by where ‘the rich folks live’…) … And then again I love looking out my quiet back windows, at the white fire escape in the evening light … making me feel like I am on a big ship … and that is living in New York: a big crowded mad ship of fools … who wouldn’t want to live in New York … BUT: HOW ROOTED, that is the real question … this ship is not really anchored … even if 20 years in the same apartment would seem like it … and I fiercely fought my way to owning this tiny piece of NYC real estate (through mountains of debts, divorce and dire straits … at times feeling I own just the walls around me but nothing else to live on …) … This space has seen the happiest and the nastiest times … and yet, it is not anchored (and it’s build on land-fill … ) And as it seems the moving cycles in my life at least, work in chunky two-decade patterns (I noticed something similar in other posts here …) - so, I am currently in doubt about New York: I can’t imagine to live without the culture and diversity, but I also feel stuck … 19 years in small town Germany, then 17 years in Berlin, and now 20 years in ‘The City’ … when asked ‘where is home’, I used to always say ‘here’ (not naming the place though! …) … And I got to test the ‘one-can-never-go-back-again’ thing, just these past two years, through the illness and death of my father … living for several prolonged stays again in what my family still thinks is my ‘home-town’ … That was a very unsettling and thought-provoking experience - not just the family drama and sadness, but the ‘culture shock’ ! … Utterly familiar, even welcoming and so very strange at the same time, how could one ever go back, there?! … And there it was, Culture is what roots one to a place (besides the space and the flower pots on the window-sill and all the books finally on shelves around all walls) … And I have had the opportunities to be able to choose - to leave first the small town culture, then one big city culture (too German, too much ugly history …) for another big city culture, and move and immerse myself in another world … Yet also trapping myself squarely in the emigrant no-where land in the process … And now it seems time to make another choice: where and how to live now (made more poignant this time, as there maybe not so many more decade-long cycles …) … It is scary and exciting to think about: what next, where next, but mostly: HOW, what culture to choose: Stay, Move, Travel … live a ‘greener’, more responsible life … maybe not be in one place for such long times again … yet really living somewhere means to stay a while … be rooted … “Leaving one’s homeland achieves half the dharma”, that’s what Milarepa supposedly said in Tibet a very long time ago … Where does one go with what one has learned …

Moved to LA for lust. The relationship didn’t last, but thankfully my love of this city did. Married and raised a family here. Still, when asked, “Where are you from?” I still answer with a question…”Originally???” So I guess I’ll forever be a Jersey Girl at heart.

11th generation Virginian, that is still my favorite state. An Army Brat, have lived all over. Have spent my adult life in Montgomery County, Maryland and Fairfax County, Virginia; both suburbs of Washington, D.C. Retired to Annapolis, Maryland to be near most of the children. Shocked to find myself in the heart of “the enemy,” after living at West Point for 4 years as a child, but I love it here! Virginia will always be “home,” but it is true you cannot go there again. Everyone is dead or moved to Arizona or Florida or assisted living or a nursing home. Sigh!

Home: My true home will always be in the town of Sheboygan, Wisconsin situated on Lake Michigan where I spent my growing years living the kind of life I keep on searching for now. After I left to go to college I knew I would never return except for visits. I knew that if I had remained in that town I would have a slow death. And so from Missouri to five other states I moved thirty some times, finally landing in Connecticut and since that landing I have moved seven times. I now live in Wallingford, Ct., a town that gives me the same whiff of my home town in Wisconsin and I aim to stay put. But I still have a recurring dream of walking the streets in Sheboygan trying to find my way back home. Don’t I know it’s within me?

My family home is in East Texas (yes, we use capital letters in Texas to describe where we live) and Mother still lives in the house she and Daddy built when I went into third grade. Next door is the house my parents built when I was 1 year old. I lived there til graduating from college and getting married, when we moved our meager belongings and huge dreams to Arlington, Texas, between Fort Worth & Dallas. After a while, we migrated a short distance west to Fort Worth. Now, 35 years later, I live still reside in Fort Worth, but am now facing so many questions about what living really is. Daddy, the love of my heart, passed away one year ago. The house where I grew up was always home base, no matter that I didn’t live there and never will again. It seems so small and sad now with him gone, and knowing that before long, Mother will join him and it will be just a house of brick and wood and shingles. I’m realizing that it wasn’t really home at all, but that my family was/is my home. I live in Fort Worth because that’s where my business is, and it would be next to impossible to begin again in another city. Twenty two years of building a successful business with a great reputation isn’t something I have the energy to repeat. I have a great contemporary house built to replicate the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse dream from my childhood. Oh, it’s not built in a tree, but the back is all glass and high, looking into the arms of a 200+ year old oak that shades and nurtures me. It’s nice, but my soul has always longed to live by the water. I need the water like I need breath, but have never seemed to be able to make that happen. Next time around…I promise myself that.

These have been the best posts I’ve read to date. I just spent my whole afternoon savoring every wonderful word. Thank you all for being so open and allowing me to share in your incredible lives. We really are amazing, aren’t we!!!

Mugsy …. I love your suggestion to Kermit on the treasure book!

I live with my 86 year old mother in Pensacola, Florida. I left Hawaii and relocated to Pensacola at Mom’s urging. I was divorced, and my three children had moved to the mainland. I loved Hawaii, but the cost of living was high. My father passed away about six months after I arrived in Pensacola. Mom had never lived alone. I stayed. My roots are in Pensacola, but I do not feel rooted here. Pensacola was my Mom and Granny’s home town. I had family in the area since the 1830s. I grew up in a Navy family and came frequently to visit my grandparents. I lived in Pensacola for a few months as a baby, two months in fifth grade, seventh grade, and my junior and senior year of high school. After Dad retired, we went to college on the GI bill. My parents settled in Pensacola when I was a junior in high school. Unfortunately, I was a new kid in the school where my father was a new teacher. I considered his career choice a disaster for my social life. I left Pensacola for college and didn’t return until I was almost 50. I have lived here for several years, but it still seems strange to live the same room that I did when I was a senior in high school. I love to travel and go at any opportunity. My children live in California, Arizona, and North Carolina. Susan, you have the job I want. How did you get started?