IT’S EITHER GOING TO BE UTTERLY BRILLIANT OR A BIT MEH. I VOTE FOR THE FORMER.

We’ve moved quite a lot over the years. Some dramatic moves, from Edinburgh to rural Wisconsin, from Minneapolis to New Zealand, and other quieter moves, four blocks over, five blocks down. Of all the houses we’ve lived in, there has been three that have made my spirits soar every single time I’ve turned the corner and caught sight of our house, our home. An elusive balance of location, neighbourhood, and aesthetics, some houses have it, and others simply don’t. They will always be the homes that stand out for me as really important landmarks in our lives, all places that could have been our forever home under different circumstances.

There are certain vistas over a city that prompt a sharp inhalation, a quick tummy flip, a dizzying nanosecond of thought where you realise just how lucky you are. Wow. I am here, right now. Wow. The train ride from Newcastle up to Edinburgh, along the coast. That second as you enter the city as if from the underside and feel dwarfed by its shear magnificence. Every single time I made that journey I paused to reflect on the wonders of living in such a city, no matter what else was going on around me. And now, having been away from Edinburgh for twelve and a half years, it is still one of my most poignant visceral recollections of the city. In fairness, so many other memories have that delightful cloudy feel of being wrapped in just a bit too much alcohol, they’re much less tangible, much more wooly around the edges.

Other times you turn the corner to home and it’s just, well, home. There it is, just as you left it. Other journeys are just trips that you make. The view from the air is just another perspective on the same, albeit one you see much more rarely.

Today we flew in to Boston airport for the first time ever. And it felt filled with the excitement and possibility that this could be our place. The place that lifts your heart and sets you free and makes you delight in your reality, delight in the fact that you get to be here, now. Wow.

After two plane rides and a two hour coach trip, our traveling circus family have set foot in Portland, Maine, a city we have never visited. Portland, Maine is the city we have decided will be pretty damn awesome for us to raise our kids and be ourselves.

We don’t know anyone here, and we don’t really know what to expect beyond what we’ve seen online and heard second hand. And yet, we pretty much just moved half way around the world to be here right now. In the morning we will see Portland in daylight for the first time, with the hope that we fall in love, or at least into a good strong like. Failing that, we can at least hope for a companionable silence.

You know what though, I have a really good feeling about this.