Gone Diggin' 2013

"So, where's home?"

I get this question regularly when I work.

The answer is not straightforward.

Is home where I live?  Yes, but since I mostly work in another community and the kids are now all out of school, I don't feel as much a part of my "home" town as I once did. I sleep there.  I go for walks.  I run into people at the grocery store.

Is it where I work?  For sure the ER is an intense place, literally life and death at times. When the pace permits there are so many interesting people and stories.  But as I see my projected retirement date start to peek over the horizon I also see the peril in proclaiming that work is home. Too many hard working physicians retire and become shadows of themselves.  Golf and fishing are not substitutes.  Those blessed with cute grandchildren seem to do better.

Is home the place where my imagination wanders off to in idle moments?  To some extent.  It is a wide open country....

Is home the place you came from?  That will always be a part of you.

But I think that in the future home will be where my boots touch the ground.  I put off a lot of traveling in my days of hard work and raising children.  Spouse likewise.  Already there are some things I would like to see and do that simply will not happen.  I would have liked to travel across Russia on the Trans Siberian railroad, preferably as part of a circumnavigation of the globe.  I am now closer to 60 than to 50.  I don't think we would be up for the challenge.

Ah well, for the next little while the question is easier.  I am off to England.  Home will be my favorite pub the quirky Twice Brewed Inn.  Updates from the excavations will start when jet lag abates and when I can master the implausible trick of getting 21st century WiFi in an 17th century stone building made of pilfered 2nd century Roman stones.

Home will be where my boots touch the ground.