Like A Rolling Stone

RHYS BOWEN: During the past three days I have flown from Mexico where I was celebrating with our entire family to our condo in Arizona and then driven from Arizona back to our house in California. It sometimes seems that I spend my life planning what to wear in a certain place, packing, then unpacking and doing laundry. One thing is certain, I am always on the move. (Though maybe not as frequently as Hank!)

One of my great-great grandfathers was disinherited for running off and marrying a gypsy. My French great grandmother Josephine went out to Australia by ship in her eighties. I blame them for this desire to wander. It has certainly been with me all my life, ever since I waded out into the sea, wearing only my sunbonnet at the age of two and had to be rescued when the water rose up to my neck. I went across Europe on my own in my early teens. At fifteen I crossed Paris alone from one station to another to join family friends in the French Alps.

I always dreamed of going to Australia and put this plan into action when I was 24. I'd only just arrived there when I met a charming Englishman and married him. He was heading to California. We married and the rest is history. Luckily he was with an airline so we have traveled the world ever since. We've stayed in a houseboat on a lake in Kashmir. We drove in a jeep up to Ladakh. We have visited Uluru and Kakadu in the Australian Outback. And I can't see us slowing down any time soon.

Whenever I get home I swear that I will stay put for a while. I will put down roots and enjoy my surroundings. But within a week or two I spot a plane flying overhead and find myself wondering where it is headed and where I might be heading next. So it's definitely in the genes.

I've come to the conclusion that humans are divided into two types: rolling stones and moss gatherers. When I was young there were people in my village who had never been up to London. What's more they had no interest in traveling more than ten miles from their home. I suppose there are still people like that today.

There are advantages and disadvantages to being a rolling stone and moving from place to place. Life has been a succession of hellos and goodbyes. I have memories of coming out of customs at an airport and seeing a face light up when I arrive. And memories of standing on a platform, waving goodbye until the train disappears around a bend. I always seem to have people I'm missing and wish were closer to me. I spent most of my adult life on another continent from my parents and childhood friends. My parents only saw my children at the most once a year. They never had the warm satisfaction of running into Nana's house to tell the latest news the way my grandchildren do. I had to agonize when I got a phonecall to say my father was in hospital in England and then later in Australia. How serious was it this time? Did I try to farm out the children and catch the next plane? Would I regret it forever if I didn't go?

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I'd stayed put in England and married the very suitable young man from Harrow and Oxford. Would I have been bored? Would I still have longed to travel? Would I have turned him into a traveler? Or would I have settled into the role of valuable village lady, running the women's institute and the flower show? (Somehow I can't picture this)

It is interesting that my fellow Jungle Reds all seem to do a lot of traveling too. We know that Hank is somewhere different almost every weekend, Debs is in England for part of the year. Lucy spends her winters in Key West, Julia spends most of her time driving her offspring these days but has lived in many parts of the world. So I'm wondering if the same inquiring mind that wants to see other places, other people, is what makes a good writer too? What do you think?

How about you, dear Readers? Are you rolling stones too?