Some comments today in the FBC and recently in other diaries about where we live and how we feel about it have prompted me to write this diary.
Are you happy about where you live right now or do you have nostalgia about a previous place of residence and feel your life would be perfect if you could only live there.. Do you wish you lived where some of our members do and have shared with us in their gorgeous pics. I admit it’s hard not to wish to live in some of these beautiful locations.
Anyway that got me to thinking about how I feel about where I live, which to be specific is Santa Ana, Ca. in Orange Co. south of Los Angeles.
I have absolutely loved California since I first set foot here in 1960, having left my home state of Pa. California was/is just beautiful and the weather cannot be beat. Over the years I would hear many around these parts talk about how they wanted to get out of here and go somewhere like Oregon or Washington. Not me, the only other place I would want to live is Hawaii, where I did have the chance to live in the 60’s and that is indeed heaven on earth to me.
However since I cannot live in Hawaii I am living in the second best place on earth to my mind.
Santa Ana, in addition to having great weather is within easy driving distance of the mountains, desert, ocean, rivers, lakes. You can go from a lovely day at the beach to a weekend snowboarding in the mountains for example or from a cruise to Catalena to the Colorado river for water skiing.
The particular town I live in currently is not my favorite of all the towns I have lived in….but it’s still in Socal and that pretty good by itself.
Still I have nostalgia for Penna…I think about the beauty of that state, especially in the southwestern part I was from….sometimes I just long to walk in the ‘woods’ again as I did as a child, to see the beatuiful fall colors and the snow falling in winter. But then I think of the winters, cold and miserable, difficult driving, and I am glad that I live here and can take a quick trip to the mountains should I feel the need to see snow and cold.
So tell us what do you like/dislike about where you live or your fond memories about another place.
Share your pics and stories with us.
Ok, what do I have to do to get you folks over here, I am stiring the potion….will it work????
Interesting topic. I purposely moved here. I let the place pick me. I have lived in a lot of different places over my life and all of them had things that I loved and appreciated.
I chose or let SE Idaho choose me exactly because it is rural, small towns, clear skies, little traffic, and I am minutes from the Snake River, beautiful trees and natural growth, crystal clear lakes, mountains, yet a 3 hour drive from big cities and people I know and love from the past 40 years.
Sometimes I miss the green rolling hills of Kentucky, and the soft southern drawl of the very sweet people I knew there. I would love to revisit the Smokey Mountains of Tenn.
I have never lost my appreciation of the woods and rivers and lakes of upstate New York and Connecticut.
I would be pleased to spend some time again in Southern New Mexico and the wonders of the mountains and desert there.
I could easily enjoy a lingering trip to the coast of Oregon and have never lost my love of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, nor the other islands there where I spent misty mornings sitting on the shores of an inlet drinking coffee listening to the sounds of the ocean greeting the shore line.
Many times I feel a very real longing to go back to the high desert mountains in Southern Utah where I spent my months in the tent all those years ago.
It also wouldn’t take much for me to take a visit to the Big Apple again. . .walk through central park in the spring when everything is jumping into bloom. . .watch the children (and adults) with their little sail boats on the boat pond, lean up against the Hans Christian Anderson Statue and just smile. I loved my 6 months in New York City. I enjoyed the very friendly and unique people I met there. And Oh, the Museums!! I could spend a lifetime in the Metropolitan alone.
For now I am loving Idaho, and the hour and a half drive to the Tetons, or Yellowstone, or other treasures of nature that tourists seldom see.
Looking forward to discovering Island life in Belize and other Caribbean places.
It’s a beautiful world we live in. A lot to enjoy!
Shirlstars, if I could just spend time in all the gorgeous places you have been, I’d be very pleased. I’ve seen bits and pieces of some of them . . and I am so envious of you!
Those places seem worked into the fabric of your soul, too. They come shining through, so clearly.
Thank you Kidspeak. . .Maybe I should do some diaries of some of those very vivid memories and take you all along with me. I am sure you could see and feel what I did while there and thus share in the discovery and great fun it all was.
My beautiful grandmother used to call it “wanderlust”, I just always saw it as adventure.
This is so relevant to me because I am constantly feeling like home is an elusive place that keeps escaping me.
I grew up in the midwest, Cleveland, right on Lake Erie and lived there until 3 years ago when I moved down south to marry a southerner. I hated the winters up there and never stopped bitching about them. I undoubtedly had SAD (seasonal depression)because it would start in late August when the days began to get shorter, and I would spend the following 6 months in a fetal position staring at the calendar…and eating. If I had found a way to both sleep and eat simultaneously I would have done so.
But I have a huge family there, and my body is attuned to the rhythms of the days and seasons of the midwest and I’m all off-kilter down here. I miss the long long days of summer and the nights that are almost always cool enough to turn off the AC and open a window and hear the crickets. I miss picking apples. I miss the lake breezes. I miss the ethnic German, Polish, and Italian neighborhoods and foods. I miss good bagels for instance. And keilbasa and sauerkraut.
The weather is beautiful here in NC from October through May and then it is hell on earth. There are nice people here, but the overt religiosity really gets to me sometimes. I struggle with wanting to move back home, and wanting to make a life here. As it is, I haven’t tried to make friends or become involved in much of anything that might make it easier to feel like this is my home. I feel like I have been on a 3 year trip and now it’s time to go home.
I always dream about living in some exotic, secluded place, but the truth is that I need familiar places and people around me. So, I’m conflicted, can you tell?
I live in a small NH town half way between the capital, Concord, and the seacoast (Portsmouth). My town is very old, pre-Revolutionary War, like many NH towns, and full of history, old stone walls, old mill sites, old cemeteries… It is not my native place, I was born in New York City during WWII, and have lived in Cleveland, around DC and Baltimore, in Massachusetts (that is where I grew up) and moved to NH in 1987. I moved to Northwood in 1984.
Part of the reason I love it here is that I am very involved. I am part of the town government, and while that is a difficult job, I love being able to get new people involved, and do some really interesting things. Right now we just found someone to work for us part-time on the Public Access Broadcasting, and he is going to be working with the town historian to make some shows about the town and its history. That is very exciting.
While NH has a reputation as a very Republican state, that is changing, since we were the only state to go from red to blue in 2004. NH is full of lakes and rivers, we have a short but beautiful seacoast, and the White Mountains are small on the global scale, but pretty substantial for this part of the world. And Mt. Washington has the world’s worst weather! We revel in maple syrup, snow, fall foliage, and rocks!!!!
Another place of envy. I spent one glorious year in NH (doing an internship at Mary Hitchcock). I knew I’d likely never live in New England again – being an academic nomad, the chances were not great. It was so beautiful, and the people were great, once we achieved a mutual understanding about accents.
Had a minor collision with a moose, took long snowy walks with my white cat (of those days) at night after work, have tons of pics of that memorable fall.
Oh, and I still can’t believe the Old Man of the Mountains is gone ..
Moved here in 1994!!!
Interesting topic!
Having lived in several places, I’ve I’d put Knoxville in the middle of the pack.
Good points: Ready access to national parks, national forsts, etc. The biodiversity here, even in my suburban backyard, just blows away any other place I’ve lived. The long springs and falls are nice. Housing prices are quite reasonable, taxes are low, including no state income tax.
Bad points: Culturally conservative atmosphere, although Knoxville ins’t as bad as the surrounding countryside, where the majority of folks are just this side of the KKK and John Birch society – and the rest are on the far side. Christianity, especially the fundamentalist flavor, is just assumed when you meet someone: on meeting our neighbors, the first question we were asked is “Where do you go to church?” The second was “What kind of name is that?” (It’s Italian).
Little in the way of art; local art museum is tiny. Schools are generally not very good; state government is weak (the flip side of low taxes) and god help you if you need some form of public assistance.
Air quality in the summer is bad. Summer is too long; winters are becoming a memory with global warming: last winter we had only 1/2″ of snow. As a result, insect problems are becoming worse, reducing the viability of pines and hemlocks among other types of trees. Fire ants are yearly moving closer and closer up Interstate 75 from Chattanooga; the state is actually tracking their progress…
Improving points: When we moved here 7 years ago, downtown was dead, especially after dark. It’s getting fixed up, and the nightlife scene is getting better.
Air quality was slowly improving, but Bush’s recent changes in environmental regulations may undo that.
The cultural scene is slowly getting better; the Knoxville Museum of Art had some neat visiting exhibits on Escher and Chihuly.
Our hockey team seems likely to be viable for the forseeable future, unlike the previous two since I’ve been here.
Progressive types, gays, etc. are slowly becoming more visible in the Knoxville community. Bush beat Kerry in this county 62-37%, but in several surrounding counties he got over 70% of the vote.
Things I miss from other places:
From Philly – Cultural diversity, Democratic majority, lots of cultural places/events readily available – world class museums and orchestra, top-level sports teams plus a plethora of college sports, including events like the Dad Vail regatta on the Schuylkill river, which is more than just a crew race, it’s a bacchanalia.
From Kansas City – Friendly, frank people who love their country and will speak their mind on any subject. The wide open spaces of my in-laws’ farm outside Liberty, Mo. Seeing a million stars at night at same. Lots of culture still, but less crime, less pollution, than Philly. Hated the summers there, especially when it got dry, but it was nice to have a real winter. The air was a lot cleaner.
From Chapel Hill (where I went ot grad school) – a progressive community in a small-town atmosphere.
I live in Newport, NH and love it. Grew up in Concord, NH family roots go back to 1644 here.
I’ve lived in 22 states over the years-ex was in the Navy and I still prefer New Hampshire to all else I’ve seen.
NH is a gorgeous state!
I just wish it wasn’t so republican.
I was born in North Dakota and have been slowly drifting south and west over the course of my life. I love Kaui, parts of Montana, and Edinburgh, but have never really been tempted to live outside the north country, though we might yet end up in Scotland.
I’m currently in Western Wisconsin in a small college town that I absolutely love. We were able to buy three times the house we had in our last city of residence, and we’re five blocks from my wife’s office in one direction and five blocks from a riverside state park in the other.
Saint Paul was our last home and we lived there for many years, but I don’t miss the town much. Mostly I miss being able to see our dozens of friends and family members in the Twin Cities metro without having to take an hour drive. If we could pick up the whole town where we live and move it twenty minutes west, it’d be about perfect. Still an hour isn’t bad. Oh, and we desperately need a good Indian restaurant.
are still getting used to our new “home”. We’re not that far from the old home town; Sunnyvale is just a few miles away from Palo Alto. And for me, since my mom died and the house was sold, I’ve felt fewer ties; unlike the spouse, I have no “old homestead” to return to. (I’ve been a bit emotional about it lately, something else the spouse has had to deal with…) There’s still the outside possibility we may return to Palo Alto, depending on what the in-laws have planned in the assorted living trusts; I think that’s one thing that’s making it hard to totally cut the cord between our old and new homes. There are some new houses going up just down the street (an old vacant office complex was torn down); I look at the construction and think wistfully, “If I only had the money…”
One of the things I like about our new hometown, especially where we live, is that it’s more centrally located; transit-wise, we’re down the street from the train station, we have two bus lines right next to our apartment complex, and three other lines just a short walk away, so for a family with only one car, it’s ideal.
The library seems to be a good one (only one main library instead of the several branch library system of Palo Alto), but there are plans to do a modernization/rebuild; I’m thinking of joining the Friends of the Library here to get in on the ground floor of the plans (as well as to help out with moving, as I’ve done for other libraries).
I haven’t taken any courses through the local parks/recreation department, but some of them look good; next year for sure I’m signing up for water aerobics! 🙂
The politics here don’t seem quite as contentious as our old hometown, or if they are, it doesn’t make the papers; the one drawback is there only is one community newspaper (The Sun), and we have to go over to the post office to get a copy. Palo Alto has the Daily News plus the Palo Alto Weekly (actually twice a week), so there’s plenty of space to publicize what’s going wrong in the halls of local government. (The SJ Murky News gives maybe two paragraphs at most to local stuff, unless it’s something earthshaking…) I worry that people are so intent on learning what’s going on around the world, they ignore what’s going on around the corner; we have a city council election coming up and I can’t figure out who I’m going to vote for…
As much as I’ve pondered moving from the Bay Area, I really can’t see us living anywhere else; Mom may be gone, but my sisters and brother are here, as well as the in-laws, and virtually our entire history together…
Hate New York state. Hate the profoundly stagnant and stupid political culture, hate the corrupt bureaucracy, hate the schizophrenic regional divide, hate the bad economy, hate the socioeconomic inequalities, hate the astronomically high taxes, hate the high gas prices, hate the frigid winters.
Love New York state. Love its beauty, love its history, love its awesome original people (the Haudenosaunee, aka the Iroquois), love the four seasons, love its crusading public servants, love the relatively tolerant social climate (compared to the far more horrifying conditions you find in certain other states), love the essential decency of the people.
I grew up in a semisuburban area of NYC, and then moved to Pittsburgh, PA for college. I loved Pittsburgh but ended up moving around a little for work: Portland, ME, Chicago, Tampa, Seattle, Portland OR in about a year and a half. I enjoyed all those places to different degrees but remained homesick for Pittsburgh. The houses stacked precariously on hills, communities- geographic and otherwise- where you can get to know people, a bustling arts and activism scene, nature nearby and hidden treasures everywhere. and the Steelers, of course.
I used to live in Oakmont, suberb of Pitts. and I loved it there. some of my fondest memories are from that time…10 to 16…have you been there!
Yes, I’ve been through Oakmont a few times. I currently live in Lawrenceville, just down the Allegheny from there.
Started off here:
Moved here:
Living here now:
I mean, where to start? I love California for its generally liberal attitude. I hate the fact that Nixon, Reagan and fucken Scharzenegger have all been governers of the place.
Mainz is a somewhat conservative town, as far as Germany goes, but it’s still far to the left of almost anywhere in the United States. Berlin, well, Berlin is its own haven of weirdness.
New York (Brooklyn represent!) is embarassing in its corruption. Only Chicago is more notorious for glad-handing and general corruption in politics. The “machine” here — it ain’t Boss Tweed’s day, but the nostalgia is there. Still, there aren’t too many places I’d live in the U.S. right now, terrarist target that it is. We celebrate everything that conservatives hate.
If I wasn’t living in NY, CA, OR or WA, I’d sure as hell move back to Europe. I just don’t have the patience to suffer morons these days.
I love Cascadia! Only lived in one other place, an unfortunate three months near DC when I was a real dumb little hippy girl. As one of our local bards sang:
This is my home
This is my only home
This is the only sacred ground that I have ever known
And if I stray in the dark night alone,
Rock me, goddess, in the gentle arms of Eden.