To leave, perchance to stay...

Yesterday at dinner my husband asked me, “Are we too old to move?” He is getting increasingly fed up with his place of employment. It really started to bug him when they hired the candidate he did not think was the best choice for the job who has turned out to be a real thorn in our sides and who is single-handedly screwing up our department in various ways. But it goes back farther than that to when he won his Juno for best composition and begged the recruitment office to use him as a drawing card for students. They cited some lame excuse about other departments feeling shortchanged and didn’t bother. He is one of the top producing professors at our institution, having won the research prize several times now, and yet feels as though he is not properly recognized by his colleagues there or those who run the music scene in the large city two hours’ drive west of here. As well, his French isn’t great and this is a predominantly (once you leave our little anglophone enclave) French-speaking area.

We are planning a trip this summer to visit his ancestral stomping grounds, a country which recently put out an invitation to descendants of immigrants to return “home”, offering citizenship (like a law of return, I’m supposing), which means that he would also have access to an extended international community where he could travel and work. As well, one of his grandparents was an emmigrant from that country and he could claim citizenship on that count as well. He’s been doing a fair bit of research into his family history and has started to get very excited about discovering his roots and is starting to give serious consideration to the possibility of leaving these hallowed shores for those hallowed shores. The question he posed was: Would I, his lawfully wedded wife, accompany him were he to venture on to possibly greener pastures?

I have a habit of developing inertia. Once I’m settled in a place, I don’t want to move. But we’re going to be empty nesters soon, and a new place could present new possibilities on many fronts. I wailed something about leaving all my friends behind, and he reminded me that I have more friends online than I do here, and he’s right. As a matter of fact, many of my internet friends are in or near to this country which my husband is finding so attractive.

It’s a lot to think about. We might get there and realize that it would be a mistake to move, that there really is nothing there for us. On the other hand, we may fall in love with it and decide to take the leap and just do it. He actually asked me not to discuss this with my internet friends, which is why I haven’t revealed the location of this country.

Anyway, here is a photo of my newest wind chimes and how they look in the context of the carillon choir I’m building.

|

<~~~ * ~~~>