Last week I was able to hear Frances Mayes speak at our public library. She was promoting her latest memoir, Under Magnolia which I read last year. That memoir is mostly about her earliest memories of place, of growing up in Fitzgerald, Georgia and her move away from the South.

I sat mesmerized listening to this wise woman tell about her lifetime of travels; of living on the Pacific Coast, splitting time at “home” in Italy and now, decades later moving back to North Carolina.

I deeply value a sense of place, and home and roots. God and the military has had different plans for my life. I am learning to appreciate the opportunities I have to expand my heart with multiple places I consider home. Home is Tennessee. Home is Texas. Home is Georgia. There will be other spots in my heart that I will call home. And as the story God is writing unfolds, I, like Frances Mayes, “love having memories of living in many places.”

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There are unique benefits to rooting and soaring. Which do you prefer and why? How has that impacted your story?