Far Horizons

I live in a hot, swampy state.

That sentence is generally true for both readings of the word state.

I was born and raised in the Sunshine State, in the tourist belt that runs across the center of the state. I grew up in the shadow of theme parks and space shuttles in a rural area very close to the coast. I have tried, several times over the years, to leave behind the orbit of this place and break the gravity well of the home town singularity. It never seems to stick. I can never quite sustain escape velocity and every time I think I have, I find myself drifting back towards the centers of mass that tie us all to the places we hail from.

Family. Friends. The bonds of old.

But I am ill-suited to the climate here. I hail from highland stock. Scots and Gaels and Nords better suited to frosty fogs, grey-clouds above sharp cliffs, and windswept moors.

Quite often, I am sweaty. I am large and so a greater than average amount of sweat is to be expected. But I sweat even more than that, even in air conditioning. Even under fans. I run hot, and I have worked up a sheen even while stomping through snow. Imagine, then, the sheer idiocy of me setting up shop on a place where the temperature generally hovers around 90 degrees for most of the year and the humidity (forgive the cliched complaint) punches you in the face with a sopping wet hot towel every time you walk out your front door.

Yet, here I am.

But this time of year, I start to long for crisp days and cold nights. Fires and fog; sweaters and boots. This is a state of mind for me; one far removed from my state of residence which continues to be muggy when it is not being threatened by hurricanes even in November.

In better years I could travel to places that felt like I want to feel. But there's reason to believe, in the words of the inimitable Adam Duritz, that next year will be better than the last.