travel vs. home

My grandmother was a homebody, literally. Weeks would go by and she'd never go out except in the garden. When she did, she always put on her best dress, hat and gloves even in the 1950s

She had lived in Chicago when she was first married. In her 50s, she and her girl friends trained to D.C. where they giggled like teenagers and short sheeted each other's beds.

Her only other travel was to her brother's in N.J. where she broke her ankle and spent the week in his house at least enjoying his and her sister-in-law's company.

My grandfather never wanted to leave his beloved garden, an engineering feat.

They were happy.

Likewise my mother thought Reading, MA had everything she needed. No need to go on vacations. The country club was only five minutes down the street, the Quannapowitt Players put on four plays a year, the town symphony held concerts. Sometimes she might venture into the next town for a restaurant. Later in life business and her later career as a journalist took her up the road a piece about a half hour to Lawrence.

I dreamed of owning a suitcase and packing it to roam the world.

At 20 as a new bride, my dreams started to come true. I went to Stuttgart, Germany where my then husband was in an Army Band. He and I did a little travel: D.C., Niagara Falls, Nashua NH, mainly to visit friends.

Only after my divorce did I get to travel as I wanted. The urge must have come from some rogue DNA.

We are just back from Edinburgh where my now and wonderful husband played in a hickory golf tournament. We stayed near Trinity, for the second time and in the same house. Edinburgh is a city I can't get enough of. As soon as we got home he left on business in Berlin. I had gone with him last time. I wanted to get cozy with our dog and the flat I love.

In about two weeks we will return to other home on Lake Léman (Geneva) with its view of the Alps and Jura where we will spend the winter with a two week trip to Boston to spend Christmas with my daughter.

We said we would cut down on traveling, but we managed this year to go Davos (not when the World Economic Forum was there), Charlie Chaplin's museum inn Vevey where we also attended the once in every 20 years Fête des Vignerons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeQEaEZSYXM

We sang with a hologram of ABBA in Stockholm and were gobsmacked by the Vasa ship museum.

Next year we have plans for visits to Toronto, Nova Scotia, Reading, MA, several places in Switzerland and France. London is also a realistic probability. It is not unreasonable to decide to think it is possible to go to Paris from Geneva for lunch. From Geneva we could also go to Italy or Germany for a day.

Rick will also do Orlando.

I love these trips but I also love snuggling down in either home with a sorta routine. Walking past a painting, seeing flowers on the desk we found in a depot vente. It was hand carved. I love being in my kitchen and looking at the stone walls. So I guess there's a bit of my family's stay-at-home DNA along with the stranger's DNA.

It's wonderful it is not either/or.