#whyilivehere

I’ve lived in many different countries, growing up as the daughter of a Foreign Service Officer and a portrait painter. With them, I lived in England, France, Germany, and Senegal; we also lived in the US in Washington, DC and Boston, and i spent one year in high school in Rome. Later on after college, I lived (alone, then with my husband and then again with our children) in Somalia, Ethiopia, Swaziland, Indonesia, Tanzania, Honduras, Kenya, and South Sudan. I could have written about why I lived in lever place I have lived, and the answer would always be the same: The practical “why” was always about work (my parents, then mine and my husband’s), the more fundamental “why” because I lucked out and truly loved every place I have lived.

For many years, I identified as a Parisian because it was my home for so long. I still adore Paris which is without a doubt the most beautiful city in the world. Later, I would have chosen to write about why I lived in Tanzania not once, but twice, for a total of eight years, because I just love Tanzania and our years there were special for all in our family.

And now I live in a converted barn on ten acres outside of Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Our property, in the country, is about six miles from Shepherdstown, seven miles from Harpers Ferry, and five miles from Charles Town. We’ve had a home here since 1984. I love being here because we live in a great community, with a perfect post office, a few good restaurants, a wonderful library, a “sweet shop” that makes amazing bread, one of the oldest pubs in West Virginia; and in this ideal community, we have wonderful friends, who are interesting and open minded and curious, and who welcome us home from our travels and absences with open arms and hearts. Everyone in our family calls the barn home - even when we are living overseas; we’ve lived here whenever we’ve lived in the US since 1984. What we do every time we return home after a long time away, after a week of work in DC, after a trip to the library, is to stand at our kitchen window, look out at South Mountain in the Blue Ridge mountains, exhale our worries and concerns away and gaze at the beauty beyond our backyard.