Go. Stay. Go.

There are homebodies and wanderlusters.

 Homebodies rarely stray. Maybe they so much love where they live that they always want to be there. Maybe they don’t have the time. Or the money. Or the curiosity. Maybe they are afraid.

 Wanderlusters are restless. They long to explore, to experience what they don’t know, what they have not seen. They are adventurers. Maybe they are thrill-seekers. Maybe they have just not found a place to call home. Maybe they are at home everywhere. The word itself originates from the German, combining "wandern" (to hike) and "lust" (desire).

 It's hard to be both.

 I am both.

 I love my home, the home itself, the land, the backyard farm, the orchard, the weedy meadow. I love my small city, my state, my Ecotopia. And there is part of me, the homebody part, that wants to just settle in for the long haul, raise chickens (again), press apples for cider, write in the quiet of my downstairs office with windows facing that weedy meadow. Don’t drag me away.

 And then: wanderlust. I love the excitement of seeing something new, doing something new, of the challenge, of testing myself, of the open road. I love being in a country where I don’t speak the language. I love seeing “horse” on a dinner menu (but do not order it). I love walking through impeccably manicured gardens and across vast arid landscapes. I love taking pictures of clouds from 30,000 feet in the air.

 And then I don’t. Then all I want to do is go home.

 I write this today, at the close of my tenth day away from home. I am not that far away: Just far enough to satisfy my wanderlust. Just far enough to make me homesick.