Book Review: Home Sweet Anywhere by Lynne Martin
I believe it was Roger who had pointed me to this book. The book was about how a couple (almost my age) sold their home in the USA and lived in other countries. The sentiment so violently aligned with my thoughts and dreams that I bought the book and jumped my “To Read” queue and brought it to the fore.
Somewhat expectedly, the book is about the experiences the author and her husband had while living in a cruise ship and 9 other countries – all in the Americas or Europe (with the exception of Morocco). It is an anthology of various snippets of events that happened to them. Undoubtedly the stories were very interesting. There is lucidity in her writing and some sense of humor too! The author was featured in Wall Street Journal.
That said, it completely disappointed me. The main reason is that my expectations were very different. The 9 countries were all covered in a matter of year and a half or so. So, it was really a few weeks to a couple of months max at any place. I was looking for a little more – maybe 3-5 years in a place. Perhaps, that is what my dream is and that is why I was hoping to learn from their experiences.
Living for a few weeks at a place cannot possibly give you the full experience of a place. You would not have enjoyed all the seasons to begin with. 3-5 years also forces you to immerse in other aspects of life – language as an example (although in this case, most of the countries could be gotten by with speaking English or Spanish) Cultivating a social circle of friends and acquaintances is another.
Note that I am not taking away anything from their experiences. Certainly, I do not know of anybody else who sold their house, packed up and went out in the world without a place to call home. The courage to do so, in of itself, is highly commendable. All the same, I will look forward to hear from somebody else who has done it for longer stretches of time.
