Today’s question is suggested by Chris Harrison! This is such a fun question, and it fits with this note about interior design. I first started asking this question in college when I spoke with the parents of my friends – well, a version of the question: I used to ask, “Why do you live there?” It’s so interesting to me why people choose to live in certain places.
Also, a great thing about this question is that it’s about, “what do you want?” and “where would you live?” I often think that it’s with friends that you can dream about things, about the future, about the “if”s. Where would you live?
Q: If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?
Since it’s a guest question, my answers are in the comments too. :) COOL! I love guest questions. Chris runs a blog on which he talks about work, family, his home. Check it out!
—
On Fridays, I ask questions (today, it’s rather late in the day!)… would love it if you’re in the mood to answer!
Hi folks…
If I could live anywhere (ah, the possibilities!!)
* Alaska in the summer (hiking, fresh air, nature)
* Kamakura, Japan (beautiful and peaceful town with history and famiy-owned noodle shops going back centuries, very beautiful nature as well)
* The Palo Alto area is very nice! I could live there for a long time. Lots of nature, delicious natural stores and restaurants, very close to hiking, skiing, etc.
* New England is beautiful in general, and in particular in the fall.
Turns out that I’m rather seasonal! Summer in Alaska, Fall in New England, Winter in Kamakura (it doesn’t get very cold there), and Spring in Palo Alto. Hmm, who knew?! :)
What an interesting question…I’m actually going through a phase wondering if I should move, so this is very apropos!
“Where” has two connotations for me: where there’s lots of interesting and good energy from both nature and from people.
* Even though I’m not a very outdoorsy person historically, I learned that it’s important for me to be near large trees. I get very depressed if there aren’t any around! Also, there need to be hills and variations in terrain, and there must be seasons and living bodies of water to visit. New England is pretty ideal, actually, for the mix of seasons and availability of trees.
* People energy is a bit different. It’s important to have friends nearby for support, and for there to be enough people to create community. Where I’m living now, it’s a little on the sparse side, and a lot of my friends live farther than 10 minutes away. So I have to make more friends, which is a little easier now that I’ve found a few area groups.
I think ideally I would actually live anywhere…you know, home is where the heart is, and if you can carry your heart with you, then anywhere is fine. I’ve thought idly of selling my condo and buying a motorcoach to be my mobile home office, and drive around the country living in different places. Then I could live wherever there was the right kind of beauty for the right moments in my life. It would have to be a VERY NICE motorcoach, I think…I’m not sure if I’d go nuts :-)
I think if I could convince the people closest to me (family, closest friends) to up and come with me, I might move to Seattle. Yes, I was that impressed by Washington State when I was there this month. The weather was *perfect,* and there was so much to do outdoors in amazingly beautiful places.
Not sure, though. I do have a major sentimental attachment to New England and the East Coast more generally. And I don’t think I’d do it if it meant putting 3000 miles between me and the people I love.
Also, Seattle doesn’t have anywhere near the kind of museums and classical music scene that some of the other cities I’ve lived in have. That might start to drive me bananas (as Santa Cruz did 9 years ago — WOW, that was 9 years ago?).
So the places I might rank highly, I suppose, would be:
* Seattle
* Boston
* London
* Washington, D.C.
In all but the first, I have the benefit of having lived there before and liked it!
Oh yeah, and Canada generally. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver. (The last has a lot of appeal given its milder winters, and even more now that I know how beautiful the Pacific NW is!) We’ve been musing on this for, oh, about 6 years. If only there were more jobs there…
I’m a slacker for taking so long to respond to this post. Here we are, nearly a week later and I’m finally answering the question I suggested to you. I could blame it on any number of things (i.e. moving offices, being in Atlanta, etc.) but I won’t. I appreciate the reminder btw, Senia ;)
I could answer this question a couple of ways. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about, especially since I moved to Augusta, GA nearly a decade ago.
When I moved here in 1997, I knew that Augusta was NOT where I wanted to live. I can say this with a high degree of certainty because I did not move here by choice, and I was not happy with how “boring” Augusta was. Over time, my opinions on the area changed, however. Having met my wife, started a family, and planted roots here… well, it’s hard for me to imagine being any other place.
Time helped this place to grow on me. It’s home now, and it’s where I’ve grown most comfortable. For me to venture back to the many places I lived growing up (Newport News, VA; Karlsruhe, Germany; Baumholder, Germany; Hanau, Germany; Ft. Rucker, AL; etc.) I would now find them foreign … especially Newport News – the place where I spent my high school years.
The other part of my answer would be that I would like to “live” wherever I am. I’ve spent my life wondering too much about where I want go and what I want to do, that I’ve forgotten the most important thing of all: to live.
I’m glad life has brought me to where I am now. I’m finally where I belong.
Dave, Lila, Chris, thanks for answering!
In all your answers, it seemed that the people wherever you end up living are the most important part about the place anyway.
Lila, I am soooooo glad that you loved Washington state so much. I had no idea it was that beautiful and the weather that temperate (I really thought it rained a lot there). And the way you describe it, it’s just stunningly calmly gorgeous (like a kid in school who’s not even trying to be cool but is cool because she is just simple and authentic and believes in herself).
Dave, I didn’t know you were considering moving. The motorcoach sounds like a pretty wild idea… and I wonder if that doesn’t make you seem even potentially further removed from a community – if you are traveling a large part of the time. (Unless you’re like that guy who sold everything he owned on ebay and then went to visit his sold items all over the world, thus making friends).
Chris, glad you answered. I know the least about you of all the answerees, and it’s funny, but you can end up learning something about a person from how they describe something. You sound settled now, and not necessarily searching for a place to plop down roots, although you might still be searching out of the corner of your eye (maybe just out of old habit). You’ve lived in a lot of places. Like Dave and Lila say, maybe where you live is just about the people! And, like you say, you’re at that point at which it feels good for you to “live” wherever you are.
Folks, sometimes your answers here are so real – it’s the best. Thank you. Mucho.
Yeah, it’s always about the people where you’re at. Being a military brat, I learned pretty quickly not to get to attached to “where” we were living. But the relationships I forged from place to place are things I cherish to this day. I don’t keep in touch with many people from my past, but there are a few that I’ll still speak with from my high school years. (Which, admittedly, only ended 10 years ago.)
I am more settled now. That’s a good thing. I learned a lot in the time I’ve lived here. It’s hard to believe I’ve lived in one place for nearly a third of my life. If you had asked me if that were possible growing up, I would have laughed in your face. But I learned that there are always going to be places you wish you could rather be at, but the reality is – those places aren’t always what you make them out to be.
Case in point, before I started working where I am at now, I worked for an advertising agency. Before I started at that agency I absolutely knew that I wanted to work there… heck, I even dared to consider it a “dream opportunity”, if you will. But 9 months into working there, the honeymoon was over. I dreaded going into work. Design, Work wasn’t fun anymore. I was fired right before my one-year anniversary with the company, and I’m glad (now) that it happened. It brought me to a better place. :)