Move

I want to move home...I want to move home...I want to move home...as long as...

I can bring my students, I can carry my coworkers, I can pack up my new friends, the coffee shop, and General Tanuki's kobe burgers.

From the minute I stepped into the 26-foot long, banana-hued Penske truck, I've wanted to pull a fast u-ey and head for the elegantly crumbling decay of New Orleans. It's so hard to be over a thousand miles removed from a place that's home to me in both the literal sense and the spiritual. It's not that I dislike "here." I'm irrevocably connected to "there."

The day we move back will be a bittersweet one, whenever that may be. It will be a rough goodbye, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm glad we moved here, if for nothing else but the realization that home is home, and this is nice, but it's not my "forever" place. I think everyone should go through that experience. If you've spent your whole existence in one community, one culture, one lifestyle, how can you truly know it's the right place for you until you live life in a different place for a while. Vacations don't count.

We considered moving to Savannah, Houston, Memphis, and a dozen places in between, but in truth, my compass will always point to the Deep South. I was born literally 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, in a hospital next to a bayou teeming with alligators and nutria. It's the kind of place that seeps into your soul and doesn't let up.

While both Maryland and Louisiana have their perks and have their flaws, only one will ever be my home. Cajun Country. The Crescent City. The Big Easy. La Nouvelle Orleans.