Everywhere I visit is awesome. To the extent that I want to live there. Everywhere I go I wonder if it’s possible to find work and a place to live there. I even surf the real estate listings, as if I’m anywhere near a place where I could even consider a mortgage, much less get one. I think one needs a steady job for something like that.

But I do fall in love that rapidly, that often. And just as often and quickly fall out. Right about the time I go somewhere new. Heading up to Ucluelet for soundwave? There’s a 2 bedroom condo right on the water for sale for 300,000 or something like that. Everything else is about 1 million plus. Heading over to Tofino to do some surfing while I’ve got a bit of a window? Ha! Good luck, though it’s possible to find a place for around 600,000, it’s more likely that the average is 2 million plus. It’s insane! But I look. I even plot and scheme what I could do for work in these places if by some weird chance I could afford to live here. I could go to school and become a heavy duty or a marine mechanic…I could open an wheatless bakery. I could live in Coombs instead. It’s slightly bohemian seeming and not without charm and somewhat removed from the retirement village atmosphere of parksville and qualicum.  And so on down the island. Where it gets super expensive.

Ok. A move to the koots? I love it there. It’s filled with people and places and things that make me happy, much like here. But there’s no ocean. This is not a new misgiving I have about the area, much as the desire to move there in anticipation of the tsunami that will most likely accompany the zombie apocalypse will affect the quality of life here is a much muddled over belief. How much would it suck if I could finally afford a property in Tofino, only to have it come with a stunning view of Atlantis? And zombies can swim. The only thing that’s freakier is sharks that can fly.

The reality is, I don’t know where I want to live. I don’t know what I want to do. And while I’m waiting for that to manifest itself, as it will I have no doubt, I’m feeling a little bit floundery. Summer’s not a bad time for that to a certain extent, by the same token, while I always found the ants a little stuffy, the grasshopper was a total flake. Where’s the happy medium?

Sometimes I think the compromise is to move somewhere that isn’t the kootenays or the coast. Which might be Bali. Or Tasmania. Or Senegal, Madagascar, Peru, Argentina. I guess I shouldn’t make any rash decisions about where I want to live just yet. I do have the first glimmerings of plans to visit southeast Asia this winter, I’ll likely wonder within about 48 hours of my arrival what kind of work I can find there..

It seems I have the work ethic of the ants, coupled with the desire to play of the grasshopper. That seems to be a happy medium in itself. I also recall at the end of that story, there was a big party that lasted the whole winter…hmm…could be fun..

Indecision aside, as frustrating as it is to have no idea where the fit is, where the desire to have a sense of home might be, it doesn’t diminish that to a certain extent, at this point anyway, I feel at home most places I go. That’ll have to do for now.