A friend at work told me about the "Sara, Plain and Tall" books, and the beautiful way a woman from Maine misses the ocean when she moves to Kansas, but then misses the prairies when she returns to Maine.
I have lived in RI (West Warwick, and Narragansett), NYC (Manhattan and Brooklyn), and now Texas (Austin).
I've tried to consider what visual I love most in each of the places.
West Warwick, RI: the old mills
Manhattan, NY: The Chrysler Building
Brooklyn, NY: The Brooklyn Bridge
Narragansett, RI: the ocean
Austin, TX: the sky
I realized tonight that the Texas sky saves me from claustrophobia, the same way the ocean provides extra breathing room in RI, and interestingly enough they are almost an exact visual flip of each other. I would simplify Rhode Island into a tiny sky and an endless ocean, while in Texas the sky never ends and it almost dwarfs the land.
I think it is good to experience living other places, but it is hard to miss things and feel whole any one place once you have moved around.
