Where in the world do you call "home" when your home changes regularly?

One question I’ve always disliked is “where are you from?” – which comes up with great regularity since I live in Egypt and it’s pretty obvious I’m not from here. I can sometimes skirt the question by answering “America” but there are times when more a more specific answer is required and expected.

It’s an innocuous question and it should be easy to answer. Not for me. Even before I went abroad with my husband, I had moved around a lot. Twelve times to be exact. Most of the time when people ask where I’m from I answer Louisiana because it was where I spent most of my formative years. But even though I lived in Louisiana from the ages of 5 to college, natives would never let me forget that I wasn’t really from there. I wasn’t born there and my parents being transplanted Midwesterners made me a Yankee by default. I’m probably lucky that I survived the time when I was ten and I pointed out that the North had won the war when the other kids were teasing me about being a Yankee. (It was news to them!)

The question of where I’m from comes up a lot in airports, when people make chit chat in the gate area. If I were alone, no doubt I could bury my nose in a book and ignore everyone but when you are traveling with small hyper children – children who talk to people – you sometimes get sucked into conversation. And while I might lie when asked the question, just to simplify things, my kids always pipe up with the truth. “Cairo!” they announce to anyone within ear shot. “We live in Egypt!”

That revelation always requires a lengthy explanation of how we got there, what my husband does for a living, how long we will stay (don’t know) and are we afraid of being blown up by terrorists (not much). A mini interview and more information than I would normally share with a stranger in an airport when jet-lagged and sleep deprived.

The usual reaction to all this information seems to be puzzlement. Even most of my friends and family are puzzled at why we live so far away and travel so much so I can hardly expect strangers to react any differently, can I? What might surprise them though is that I am equally puzzled at why they stay put.

The longest I’ve lived in any one place is 6 years. I’ve never had the luxury of being too big a packrat and most of my childhood books, papers, and toys have long gone. I don’t have a family home to return to because my parents have pretty well been as nomadic as I have. There are few people who have known me more than 10 years and fewer still that have known me more than 15. And there’s something kind of nice about being able to reinvent yourself with every move. When no one knows you, you can start with a clean slate every where you go. Even your wardrobe gets a new lease on life.

As mystifying and unsettled as my life might seem to others, I can’t really imagine what it must be like to *not* move. To stay in one place your whole life. To know that your kindergarten art work is in a box in the corner of the attic at your mother’s house – which is just down the street. To have gone to school with the same people for the whole time — and still socialize with them. To know who all of your neighbors and their children are. To remember when the Waffle House on the corner used to be an independently owned diner and before that a vacant lot. To have worked at the same job for your entire career.

Yes, there are times when I dream of finding a nice little house somewhere where I can paint the walls any color I like, plant a vegetable garden and stay put for the next forty years or so. But the world is a big place and I haven’t found my ideal spot – yet.

I keep dreaming though. And maybe that’s why I tend to write books that take place in small towns. Maggie, the heroine of my current release ALL THE WAY HOME, is reluctantly returning to her home town after an extended time away. She’s ambivalent about her return – until she runs into her high school crush and finds out that not only is he still gorgeous but he’s still single too. Maggie’s had a restless spirit, can Sam convince her to settle down?

(Come on - It’s a romance novel! How else would it end?)

As for me, I’m sure that one day I’ll find the perfect place to settle down. And when I do, I’m staying put too!