Feeling Less Patriotic? Try Expatriotism. And Blest Be the Tie That Binds.

The very thought of seven weeks of Obama-Clinton fighting for a win in the Pennsylvania primary is enough to send me packing for good. But where to go? Out of the country, surely. A beautiful spot like San Miguel de Allende? Too big? Ajijik? Too many tourists maybe? Africa? Well there's the malaria and the bloodshed and all that. Scotland? But then there's the exchange rate. Does anybody really welcome Americans with open arms anymore? It's hard enough to be welcomed when you're over-the-hill and not exactly laden with jewels, let alone from George W Bush's homeland.

There are many considerations, most achingly, leaving loved ones behind, but also foregoing top-notch medical care, and saying goodbye to the old homestead where you always thought you'd rock in a rocking chair into your dotage, surrounded by your progeny.

Peace Corps, anyone? Is it too arduous for a non-athlete? Make me a pallet on the floor, and I'd give it one more try, I think. But after years of Egyptian cotton sheets it could be hard to adapt. I can picture myself heading west and settling into obscurity out in the desert with a shotgun to keep away intruders, a big dog, no mortgage, no TV, drawing my water from a sputtering well, sleeping on a cot with squeaky springs and an old wool blanket, and ekeing out a hardscrabble existence with rice, beans, and potatoes. Or not.

I could stick it out here, hang in for a bigger pension and that social security, go to church, be with my family, live the life. How do you decide? OR...It could be fun to be an expatriot (or an expatriate)-somewhere like Mexico, if there's any place left that's as "authentic" as it was in my heyday there forty years ago. Not too many art gallery openings please, not too many feel-good meetings please, not too much old-folks support group stuff please. Don't anybody try to trick me into dying with your arts and crafts classes, please, and thank you.

How to decide? Do you do it because you really have to? Because you really want to? Or because you can't stand the status quo any more? I feel like I lost my people somewhere along the way in the last near half-century, like I wandered off from the tribe and now want to find them again. I guess that's old age coming on, looking toward the communion of saints. I guess it's an illusion, a way to imagine a return to youth. I guess we all wandered off into life and now have to shift our sails and start heading home, where the heart is.

When shall we meet again? When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle's lost and won.


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Blest be the Tie That Binds

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

We share each other’s woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.