The house I grew up in--I can't decide whether I like what got done to it or not.

[DFW]

19. The other way around for me

I was in Virginia/Washington until the age of 16. Then: Spain, Massachusetts, Philadelphia (5 years), then the Boston area for a few years, and then over here to Europe when my wife-to-be made me an offer I couldn’t refuse (namely, “want to live with me near the banks of the Rhein River?” ). Of the possible options I was considering, “no” was not among them. We’ve lived in a few places. First in a gritty factory town in the Ruhr industrial area, and then finally now in our old medieval town near Düsseldorf.

I suppose I could be persuaded to move again, but I haven’t yet heard the argument persuasive enough to make me want to do it. I’ll run to the airport and fly anywhere, but I want to come home to our simple little house outside Düsseldorf. I could move back in to my parents’ old house, the one in the photo, simply because the memories are so etched into my memory, but my wife wouldn’t want to live anywhere where a car is a necessity, so it ain’t gonna happen, and anyway, no house is worth losing her.