Spirit Grooves Blogs
MISSING IN ACTION

Published on July 13, 2013



That would be me during the warm months. If it is busy, it must be summer. It happens every year; I get lost in activity and before I know it the weather has turned cold and we are headed for winter. Each year I promise myself that I will savor each longer day as the Sun climbs northward. And I dread hitting the solstice, the top of the year because I know that it is all downhill from there. That's the price we pay for a temperate climate.

No place I have ever been is more beautiful than Michigan in the summer, yet I always run out of patience with winter and wish I had moved south. But how would that work?

There I would be in some small southern town in winter, much warmer, a place where I could go for long walks outside even in winter. But also, there I would be hundreds of miles from my kids and everything I know, so what's the point?

What role does context play in my life? If you pluck me out of Michigan and place me in Florida, what is lost? There I would be, a stranger in strange land, to coin a phrase, perhaps warmer than toast, but bereft of familiar associations. And I hate air-conditioning.

I am sure that some of you reading this have done this, pulled out or harsh winters and replanted yourself in a sunny clime? How does that feel? Do you miss the context you grew up in and what do you miss? I am curious.

Did you permanently relocate or do you just hit the south for a couple of months during the end of winter. Tell me your experience please.

[Honey bee just outside of my house.]