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Nature, it speaks true.  Why not man?

The Tempest (1982)

One morning Julie and I found a turtle in our back yard.  Being tree-huggers of sorts, we were at a loss.  Although for me, the love of animals has more to do with their helplessness than any sense of conservational responsibility.  We couldn't leave the turtle in the back yard because the dogs might hurt it.  Our house sits close to the street, so the front yard wasn't an option.  We called an area nature center and were advised that a turtle will do just about anything to return to its place of birth.  This gave me some relief that turtles lack firearms and opposable thumbs.

The guy at the nature center told us the turtle was probably headed for the nearest body of water.  The only thing we could think of was the drainage ditch that runs across the street.  So we left the turtle out there and hoped for the best.

Every year a pair of doves nests in an orange tree in our back yard.  Not only the same tree, but the same branch of the tree.  I've read that the average life span of mourning doves is 1.5 years, so maybe these are descendants of the original doves.  Either way, I appreciate their consistency.

This theme of returning to the place of origin seems common in nature.  I've met people who never left the county in which they were born.  I've met others who spend their lives wandering and have no wish to settle in a specific location.  I left my home state of Indiana in 1989 to go to school in Texas.  Since then I've returned to my hometown exactly three times; two of those trips were for funerals.  It's not that I don't like the place; funds and time are always limited.  In 2001 Julie and I sold our house in California, moved to North Carolina, and bought a new house there - all in one month.  This adaptability, the ability to position ourselves in more viable locations relatively quickly, has clearly been critical to our survival as a species.

Only economics and politics - national borders - complicates this social and biological freedom to move from place to place.  And technology has gradually chipped away at economic factors, making it easier for more and more people to live and work in completely separate locations.  What is home, then?  A physical space?  A state of mind?  A collection of emotional or social bonds?

We affect our location and our location affects us.  Where to live is not a trivial decision.  In the United States, Sperling's BestPlaces helps you figure out the city or town best suited to your likes and dislikes.  (San Francisco came out at the top of my list, which makes me think their algorithm isn't giving enough weight to my desire for affordable housing.)  Either way, living a thoughtful, deliberate life involves giving serious thought to our location.

I admit, some days I still wonder how things worked out for that turtle.  But the baby doves left the nest recently and it was a real treat to watch.