I am filling out a form that asks at one point where and during what periods of time I have lived since I turned 18. That's a lot of places, although nowhere near as many as it would be if I had served in somebody's military or had run away to the circus.
Having to make a list of where I was when, and what I was doing there, has been a very interesting exercise. At one level, I have had quick snapshot reminders of events, conversations, discoveries that happened in each house I have called home. Nice to revisit in my mind the various cats that have curled up on my lap, the bicycles the hall, the early morning sounds of a wide range of neighborhoods.
At a second level I am forcibly reminded of how thin a path I have walked. My family came to the Colonies in the 1630's and got kicked out of the United States to Canada in the 1780's. We (me included) moved back to the States in the 1950's and I have lived on both sides of the border since. However, with a couple of excursions (notably living in the Arctic for four years), I have not really lived anywhere that my great-great-great-whatevers could not conceivably have walked to from West Hartford, Connecticut. I am not sure what to draw from that, except to suspect that my understanding of the world and of people is much more constrained than I tend to assume it is.
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