I am in essence a Kentucky writer who has been relocated to a foreign world. I miss the hills and trees, the blush of spring across the Bluegrass State, and most of all the people that will always make Kentucky my home.
There are also practical reasons to miss writing in my home state. If I wanted to describe a certain crypt in the Lexington cemetery or the direction a street ran, I could drive over and look at it while making my notes. If I had historical questions, the Kentucky Room at the Lexington Public Library, UK,
and Transylvania's special collections were a short distance away. Researching the nineteenth century in Kentucky is much harder a thousand miles from home.
There is nothing disparaging I want to say about Florida. It is beautiful here on the Gulf Coast. I love walking along the causeway at Fred Howard Park, breathing in the salty scent of the breeze off Saint Joseph Sound and looking out over white sand and tranquil turquoise water.
The Tarpon Springs Public Library is friendly and an excellent resource. I participated in their local writer's day this month and met many of the other writers who live nearby. I have even taken up writing a weekly column about Tarpon Springs on Examiner.com.
What I don't like is the difficulty I am having thinking of Florida as home. I have a Florida driver's license, put Florida plates on the car, my voter registration card arrived today... I'm doing everything I am supposed to do to settle here, but I am as unsettled now as I was the day I arrived.
