I’m sitting in a café in Canton Ohio, awaiting for a road trip later today headed to Nashville. I’m just getting over my jetlag from the United Kingdom. Somehow I will squeeze in New York City and Philly before I head back to London next week. I am not a musician, but I am embarking on my annual North American leg tour of visiting family and friends. I am proud to say that home is not one city, state, or country. The world is my home, and I feel it.
Last year I visited Paris three times, and am yearning to return to this little patisserie St. Michael Boulangerie close to The Shakespeare Bookstore. I want to simply roam and linger in these familiar haunts with the same drive as visiting my best friend in our hometown as we cruise the streets of the Midwest. Both bring a sense of wonder, beauty, and joy. Both are blissful, exciting, and memorable. Both internally are stored and replayed in my head as moments I’m deeply grateful for.
This should be of no surprise that I view myself as a citizen of the world, and perhaps you could explore that title too.
Upon completing a recent 23 & Me DNA test, I found that my genetic makeup for the past 500 years places my roots to almost every corner of the world. It’s amazing and makes perfect sense that my sense of adventure is ingrained in my blood. My ancestors pushed out of their boundaries to see new lands, interacted with people who were “other”, and even mated with them. One after another, after another. Although, I know of the history of an incrementally small percentage of my people. There’s universality in their stories….in all of our stories.
Explore. Learn. Love.
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
It Only Takes A Smile 