Moving Again aka Ode to the Vagabond

Yep. You read that right. I'm moving again.

This makes 14 moves since January 1999. Fourteen! And that's not counting the four office moves. Three of the fourteen have been in the last few months, since arriving in North Georgia in December.

If I throw in the cross-country move from Georgia to California in '99, that's fifteen, and the four places I lived in the seven-month period before THAT move, we're up to nineteen since June of 1998. So 19 moves (plus four office) in 12 years. Phew.

This moving mania has been a part of my life since I first left home...before the age of 18.

Several moves in to my stint in Southern California, I decided I must be part gypsy. Or maybe I am descended from a long-lost tribe of nomads. I do know that I am descended from William the Conquerer (aka William the Great, William the Deliverer, William the Bastard) on my Grandmother Willoughby's side. Gypsies roamed freely back then.

Whatever the case, it occurs to me that I should probably invest in a nice motor home. At least that way when I move I can just hop in and drive to my next destination, and pay lot rent rather than having to box up my belongings and tote heavy stuff around every time.

It also occurs to me that it may be time to take a closer look at why I am blown from place to place like a dandelion seed in the wind. It has seemed that each move has been the next right thing in front of me, and that there is a deeper driving force. But is that just me justifying being a vagabond?

As is my wont, I stopped to google vagabond. And found the following passage in Wikipedia:

By the 19th century the vagabond was associated more closely with Bohemianism...The critic Arthur Compton-Rickett compiled a review of the type, in which he defined it as men "with a vagrant strain in the blood, a natural inquisitiveness about the world beyond their doors." Examples included Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Leo Tolstoy, William Hazlitt, and Thomas de Quincey...

I like the more upbeat connotation of the Bohemian moniker. And now, knowing I'm in the good company of these glorious authors, I feel better. See. Blogging IS good for the soul. I always learn something new. And I usually learn something new about myself in the process.



Wikipedia also included a list of songs that mention vagabond. The most notable (for me) are Little Feat's Roll Um Easy, Frank Sinatra's New York, New York and Joan Baez's Diamonds and Rust. Strangely, they left out my favorite, Over the Hills and Far Away by Led Zeppelin. Vagabond, a delightful song by Bethany Dillon, an artist I'd never heard of, was on that list. I'm not sure, but it sounds like this song is about the Son of God. Most excellent company to be in.

Whether I'm a gypsy, nomad, vagabond, or bohemian, or just a woman following the call of Divine, my wanderings today have led me to an unexpected conclusion. It's okay. Nay. It's inspired.

Guess it's time to start saving for that motor home.

Pictures from top: Our new home on the outskirts of Dahlonega, we'll be moving some time in the next two weeks; our new back yard (yes, folks, those are newly leafing-out woods, complete with dogwoods, wild azaleas and sweet shrub!)