The local joint where everybody knows your name like Cheers. The familiarity of knowing your neighborhood, your favorite Sushi restaurant, the barber you know by name and whose children you have watched grow up. These are the familiar scenes that most people find comforting. Knowing exactly where your desk is, turning into the parking spot you've grown to think of as yours and chatting with coworkers. Work comforts that help to make working bearable and for some, even enjoyable. But for me...not so.
I am one of a rare breed who find familiarity and sameness boring. Once I've mastered a thing, figured out all the best places to eat in a town, gone to the same holiday spot more than once, I yearn for change. Something new and exciting. Something different.
That delicious brown stew fish from Dutch Pot is one of my favorite meals to buy but I only eat it two or three times per month to prevent tastebud boredom. And as much as I enjoy a good Beres Hammond Concert, the sameness of his set means I've only been a couple times. Still mi love Beres!
We are about to do a project that entails five short children's films and I'm so excited. After writing and directing four feature films, I'm thrilled at the prospect of something different. Working with kids to create these mini films.
It should therefore come as no surprise that among my yet to be completed desires is my wish to live in several different countries for short periods of time. Top of my list is Costa Rica! My favorite place under the sun next to Jamaica, of course. It's Jamaica on steroids in terms of beauty but add friendly people, safe environments and more wildlife and flora than you can imagine. Panama is also on that list; so is Greece; and Spain and so is a full tour of the USA. The list goes on and on.
As I rapidly approach my 60th turn around the sun next year, I realize time is short to accomplish this lofty goal. Or is it? If God spare life (as we say in Jamaica) what's to stop me? Amerikkka was always a place I came to so that my children could take advantage of the opportunities. That's done. After 25 years it still doesn't feel like home. What else is there to stop me? A house? Nah! Houses a plenty and when I get to 80 I can worry about house. One room to lay my head, a place to wash up, cook little food and two plants in a pot will suffice at that point.
So what's to stop me? Money? Nah! Never stopped me before. I live a simple life. Husband? Nah! Gladly he's intrigued by the idea and quite frankly, after 50 years in Amerikkka, he's had enough! That little shack on the beach in "Death in Paradise" would be perfect right about now.
Change is in the air...I can feel it, smell it, taste it. It's rising up in my throat like the notes of Ave Maria that I can no longer hit. I'm excited. Something wicked this way comes!!! (wicked in the Jamaican sense of the word).
Judith Falloon-Reid is an Author, Filmmaker, poet & Speaker. Check her out at www.jfalloon-reid.com