Off

Amy and I are moving to Scotland for six months.

It was Amy's idea. She has lived in the Southern Tier Finger Lakes region of New York all of her life. Not in one spot, exactly ... bouncing around from the small town of Groton, to the country-fied acreage in Newfield, to the comparative metropolis of Ithaca. But tethered to a circle about 30 miles wide - small enough to be monochromatic.

"I want to live somewhere else," Amy said. "Like very, very else."

OK, I was horrified. Ithaca is the best place I have ever lived. I adore the progressiveness, the rolling, challenging hills, the temperate summers, great libraries, the locally-made cheese and tofu (which are pretty much the same thing, if you think about it). Why would I want to live somewhere else?

Why? Because it's Scotland. Duh!

Here's the thing. Scotland looks like the pictures you've seen. You recognize castles and brick streets. The oatmeal porridge and scones and haggis look like they do on the restaurant web site. There are people playing golf and/or the bagpipes there.

But it feels different. There's something dark and magnetic which gnaws at you. It's a feeling that you're sure runs way longer than its civilized history. It pulls humans in and makes them stay awhile. It seems to give the Scots strange powers: practicality, acceptance, a sense of humor ... the ability to see color in black and white scenery.

Yeah I know, that's vague. That's why we want to live there for six months. We won't figure out Scotland, but we can absorb it.

When you live somewhere, you have to find comfort all over again. Things are not where you left them. Glitches will happen: You will have a bad meal. You will get colds and flu and maybe even COVID. You may even be bored.

But it's not a vacation. You will meet people who live there. Horrors! They are not in your tour group, and they don't have a name tag! And maybe see them more than once! You can even choose not to see them again if you don't want to.

It's all very discombobulating. All the better to have the perfect companion, one who rolls with the punches, who has heard your standard 12-joke set a billion times. OMG. Now there is a whole friggin' country to tell them to!

In short, Amy and I are going to Scotland to get mutated. It might take awhile. But if there has ever been a place on earth with DNA-wrecking, magnetic, magical properties ... it is Scotland.

Also there is whisky.