After Sash and I spent the last four months on the road, staying towns no longer than 3 weeks at a time, we're now holed up in a condo for 3 months, enjoying the warm climate while the rest of the country freezes.
She and I both find it difficult to avoid using words, "return", "home", and "we're back". That's because we don't want people to think that our Road Pickle lifestyle has ended. We still see ourselves as motorcycle wanderers having started this journey 21 months ago and continuing on today. We're just renting this condo month-to-month until the end of January.
Yet, our old friends in San Diego all ask us the same question, "Are you back here to stay?"
Banker's Hill is a neighborhood located midway between San Diego's lower Broadway and the famed Hillcrest Community. It's called that because historically it's where all the rich people lived. Today, it's more a mixture of single professionals, small business owners, and white collar gays. It's affluent enough to be quiet and quaint, yet millennial enough to welcome scooters and skateboards.
Sash and I look around this neighborhood and notice that Croce's is now here in the area, having relocated from Gas Lamp District. We were there for a couple of evening outings already, the last time we met up with Jessica, a spiritual healer that Sash became really close with over the past couple of years.
There's also friends Janet and Ringo, whom we caught up with at a cocktail party at Janet's last weekend.
And we had already taken walks into downtown, visited some old hangouts of ours, like Karl Strauss Brewery on Columbia, Knotty Barrel on 9th, and Mission Brewery on 14th. There was also Baja Betty's on University, Sipz on 30th, and Sash's favorite place to find clothes, Thrift Trader on Iowa. And there a few more favorite places that I left out because I didn't want to go on and on.
But suffice it to say, it feels so much like home. Yet, I can't allow myself to let it sink in, because in a couple more months, we may leave it all behind again.
So what does it do to a mind to live in such a transitory state? How does it affect one's perspective when he or she doesn't allow themselves to create deep, emotional connections?
Perhaps that's a profound difference between Sash and I. She can open herself up to create those impactful connections, even while moving across the country. On the other hand, I've always kept those emotions at an arm's length, preferring to experience them in small chunks at a time. For me, not letting it all sink in feels comforting.
It's when I resign myself to stay permanently in one place, that I feel trapped and dying.
A vagabond who hauls a motorcycle around the country in a toy hauler, earning a living as a website developer. Can often be found where there's free Wi-Fi, craft beer, and/or public nudity. 
"Home," the wise man once said, "is where the heart is." For you it's the road and that is perfectly okay for you. For me, it's more a region - I've always been in love with the American South although I've only lived in it for about 15 out of my 48 years. My brother has no desire to ever leave his hometown of Pittsburgh (or even move to the other side of town). Perhaps home is more than a physical location...but a feeling. A emotion that can not be described. Your home is the open road because that is where you are truly relaxed. What is wrong with that?
ReplyDeleteWhile visiting old haunts and favorite places may feel comfortable I can see how thinking you were stuck in one place might not. We'll see how itching to go you two are come the new year.
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