Another Chair is Empty in the Class of '74's Homeroom

People, they come together.

People, they fall apart.

No one can stop us now.

'Cause we are all made of stars.

 

-Moby, We Are All Made of Stars

 

 

Days in Lisboa are unpredictable. If the weather application says no rain until late in the day, it will rain at nine in the morning and continue until dark. Likewise, if the forecast is for a day full of rain, the day will dawn with bright sun. When you live this close to the Atlantic Ocean, you have to accept the weather you get. Like many things in life, you hold your hand out the window and guess what will come next and then you accept what will be.

 

On dry days I start laundry early. Doing the wash ties me to the house for hours at both the start and end of the day. On wet days I do things, I get stuff done. I go online initially. I check bank accounts, moving on to clearing out my email inbox (replying when needed) and finally writing up a to-do list for the rest of the day. There are so many things I must do with what waking time I am granted. Mine are the daily rituals of a man getting closer to 70 than to 60. 

 

If the rain has stopped by the time I pull away from the screen I head out for my daily exercise. This morning on only slightly wet pavement I walked about a mile and a half in just under half an hour. Today my musically inclined adult son accompanied me and we talked almost the whole time about Merle Haggard, Marty Robins and John Prine. We talked about the talent of telling a very visual, very visceral story in two minutes and a half. 

 

We talked about how sometimes you have to consider what the lyrics meant when the song was written. John Prine’s Sam Stone, Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore and Hello in There were all released while the Vietnam war was still raging. They were anti-establishment protest songs. As time has moved on, for almost 50 years, they have become quaint artifacts of an idealistic generation that has lost its way. So many years have passed since that first John Prine album dropped. I was a teenager then, and decades have passed since l first heard it. Those songs poured out of our family's kitchen radio while I did my chores, i.e., drying dinner dishes. That house is gone.  That radio is gone.  That part of my life is gone.

 

In years past I rode my bicycle for miles at a time for exercise. That was exhilarating. But one day I fell and tore up my rib cage. Flying down the streets on two wheels is mostly over for me. My daily walks are my exercise. My rhythmic footfalls are my meditation, my prayers to whoever might be listening. My prayers have become much more frequent, much more urgent and far more heartfelt.

 

Unlike today on most days when I wander out I travel alone. Trust me on this, I carefully watch for cracks in the stones that make up my pathway. Hundreds of thousands of cracks await my feet as I shuffle through my route. Moving carefully, I barely see the stores lining the street. Rarely do I glimpse the sky above, lest a crack reach out and grab my toes. This would give gravity the chance to wrap its tendrils around me and pull me down hard. Day, dusk, or night my focus is downward, for safety I tell myself.

 

One day less than a year ago I looked up when I set out on an evening journey. A brightly pulsing star blazed by and was lost.  Taking a solid stance with my legs apart and hands on my hips I gazed upward at the sky. What was that?  

 

In my youth, I knew the sky so well. Gazing up at the stars that moonless night, I saw that the sky I knew had been forever changed. That shooting star I watched blaze across the sky disintegrating into nothingness had once been a prominent feature on my mental map of the universe. Now a black and gaping hole left the firmament diminished. How to explain the feeling? At that moment the air in my lungs seemed inadequate and my body felt like nothing more than a shell.

 

As the year wore on more stars fell from the sky. It became obvious that the cosmos I had once known like the back of my hand was shrinking. Darkness spread. Stars that had barely registered in my awareness were now quite notable in their absence. Stars I had known since I was a teen had disappeared over the years but this was different, this was much more personal. As this year has progressed I have kept an eye out for more changes in the firmament. This universe I have known for almost my entire life seems to be ebbing away.

 

A few days ago, another bright star burned out.  She was a brilliant and magnificent star similar to the one who vanished earlier in the year. The star that streaked by had shed so much light on this world. With this one gone as well; the sky became noticeably darker. As I stare at the sky tonight I am shaken.

 

These lights burning out, or simply blinking off into nothing, will only accelerate. In just a few years the sky I knew as a young man will be no more. One by one the beacons in my firmament will fall or fade. Truth be told I may not be here when what was my sky goes completely dark. But until the day when the last of my beloved night lights turns nova and then fades I hope someone hold the memories of the original star chart near and dear to their breast.  

December 14, 2017 Six Years Passes So Damn Quickly

 

Life flies by so very quickly.  Our grip on the now, and on life itself, is tenuous even in the best of times. In the silent spaces of reflection that occur when one grows older blurred images of moments lived well, lived poorly, and spentmundanely flash in our minds. Like scenes out the window of a fast-moving car or a faster moving train, they appear and vanish in a moment. It is only when we sleep that we get a longer look at the past we wish we had grabbed more heartily. The past we wish we had held much closer to our bosoms. My advice to the young is to let your arms extend as far out as possible as you embrace life.

It was quite late last night that I turned my face away from the center of the bed. Facing the wall, I worked through my various prompts for bringing sleep.  Quickly I spiraled into the dark abyss of a restless mind held deep within a sleeping body. Recently dreams have been flooding my sleep in the early hours of the morning. These phantom world images and constructions are all over the place. My dreams have included scenarios ranging from me getting busted for selling opium to finding myself stuck in a mountain village with no coin and no knowledge of the language or culture but having arrived there at the end of a Disney roller coaster ride.

Last night’s dream was particularly vivid.  One minute I was talking to a dear friend sitting on a beat-up old blue green couch on the front lawn of the house I lived in over 50 years ago in East Lansing, Michigan. Next I was looking at the same scene only I held an old photograph that captured the moment instead of being there in person. Finally, I was looking at the side of the seven-story building that covers the spot where that old barn-shaped house used to be. A bar, apartments, and far too many years have obliterated all traces of the place and space. A profound sadness took hold, so many grains of sand have passed through my fingers.

Waking up I knew there was no way I was getting back to sleep. Reaching over I grabbed my watch and saw it was 6:25 AM. I tried not to stir for a few minutes hoping I was wrong and sleep would return. It didn’t and I got up as quietly as possible to avoid waking the other occupant of the bed. In the kitchen I grabbed oatmeal and some coffee. Sitting down at the dining room table, I opened up my phone and checked the news, my email and then moved on to Facebook. There it was in the suggested memory, two young men trying to get some extra sleep in the back of a car rolling down a lonely stretch of road between Sarnia and London, Ontario. I smiled and the sadness stirred by the dream faded like mist burned off by the day’s bright light.

On December 14, 2017 East Lansing suffered bad weather. Despite it being a sunny day patches of ice were all over the roads and highways from storms the night before. However, the day was clear. Having lived in the north country long enough we knew that the longer the sun was out the less dangerous the US Interstates and the Ontario freeways would be. Still, we had to add a couple of extra hours to the travel time to Lester B. Pearson airport in Toronto. 

All packed the night before, the car loaded with our suitcases, all we had to do in the morning was get up and head out. Leaving slightly earlier was an inconvenience and nothing more. But for those young men, sleeping was a priority. Itwould be a full day before they would sleep again. Me: I had just downloaded a photo app on my phone and I was damned sure going to document our first foray to the continent. Hence the sleep shots.

At about 11:30 PM that December 14th, after two de-icings, our Air Canada Rouge flight took off from Toronto destined for Lisbon Portugal. A holiday lark, nothing more. We would hit Lisbon and Porto. Back then I thought we would have seen all the worthwhile things to see in Portugal in that span before heading home via Canada on Christmas Eve. Backthen, I thought this would be just the first of many serial trips to cities all over Europe. Funny, life had other plans for me.

In the last six years since that first flight to Lisbon I have retired and have spent over a year and a half living in Portugal. Ihave gotten a tax ID, I have entered the national medical system and become a resident. I have travelled north and south through the country. I have visited towns in almost all corners of the country. Now I live in a three-bedroom apartment on the 1st floor of a 5-story building. We have a balcony that runs from one side of the apartment to the other. In warmer weather, April through October, I eat my meals on that balcony. 

In the past year I have made friends with people from all over the place from all sorts of backgrounds. There have been habits formed, such as drinking milky coffee in the afternoon or eating a pastry in a padaria. I have toured churches, museums and out of the way towns. I have attended concerts and entertained guests passing through town. Standing on the banks of the Rio Tejo I have watched tall ships parade down the river. Surrounded by thousands I watched a carnival parade.

Between December 14, 2017 and December 14, 2023, a mere six years, my life has changed for the better. Neverexpected to be an emigrant, nor expected to get used to drinking an imperial beer with lunch. I  never imagined I would hang my laundry on a line off the back of my apartment on the regular. But this life I stumbled onto by accident, it is better than good. To steal a line from out of the 1980s I am so much closer to fine.

On Reading Crime Series, Bosch et alia. *

13 November 2023

 

Warm day today, high 60s F. Very humid. Did one load of laundry. Just stuff that dries no matter how humid it is. Walked 1.67 miles this morning at a pace that was faster than 3 mph.  Have a couple more walks to do before bed. Bought a Christmas tree topper These are the easy things to identify and list. I have not checked my email or the news. My stomach can't handle it yet.

 

For the longest time I have not been reading.  In the early part of last week, I decided to ease back into it. For me when I want to start reading in earnest again I begin with a crime novel, or a police procedural if you like. Picked up a stand-alone book by a gentleman who writes tons of crime series. The book was The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci. And then I finished four more Baldacci books, the John Puller series. And then much to my surprise I found a Bosch book I had not yet discovered. My iPad is earning its keep right now.

 

I think reading these crime novels is a throwback to the time when I was a kid and math was still interesting. I mean for me the idea that there are immutable facts like 1 + 2 = 3 was a very comforting one. To some extent crime novels are like math formulas.  If the gun is of a certain caliber, and if the bullet came from the gun, and once we are able to identify the fingerprints as belonging to that guy, he did it. Immutable. But in reality crime novels are more akin to further advanced math problems with a number of variables and we are told to solve for whatever =x. There is much mental fun in making logical leaps when diving into these trashy tales.

 

Crime novels have an order of operations.  From my experience it runs like this: 

 

Identify there is a crime as opposed to self-harm or misadventure. Identify the crime's nature.  Focus on the obvious suspect with the help of a neighbor, or that guy in the crowd who offers only two words, points and disappears. Rule out the principal suspect due to DNA or an unknown hair on the murder weapon. Have the investigator put in mortal peril only to be saved by either a.) a burgeoning love interest or b.) a fellow investigator who hates the hero but is committed to truth and justice. Have the investigator come back to “the basics,” or “reread the file.” When he or she looks at the crime scene crowd shot photo and sees that guy in the crowd who said two words the mental light turns on. This is telegraphed to the reader by the hero's thought of, ‘If he just got there how did he know about the frozen banana found in the victims colon?’ Finally comes the mad dash to stop the perp before there is another crime and another victim. Tragedy is averted and the criminal is caught or killed. Bruised and battered, there is an implication that the hero and the love interest or the former despised coworker have a long future together.

 

When I finish the Bosch story I have to move on to some serious literature. Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending is next in the queue. Don’t know the story, but it is a Booker Prize winner. Usually, I enjoy reading either the actual Booker winner or another book by the author who penned the winner. Can’t let the mind atrophy. Plus I’ve got time.

Times Are Dark, Let Us Work Together

 

Sunday has come again. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the case because I can hear the congregation across the courtyard singing. But has anything changed?

 

Each day this week I read the headlines. They screamed destruction and death, distrust and dysfunction. Oh, the horrible things that are now the resting state of our world. A week ago, following a similar seven-day assault on my spirit’s reserve of hope and compassion, I started to write a piece stating our world rested on a precipice. Ultimately the piece concluded with a statement that I didn’t know if our sphere would go over the cliff head first or step back from the edge. I even looked up the term precipice to make sure I was using it correctly. Here it is. 

 

Precipice - prec·i·pice /ˈpresəpəs/ (noun), A very steep rock face or cliff, especially a tall one; "we swerved toward the edge of the precipice".  I searched for a definition of the phrase standing on a precipice.  If you say that someone is on the edge of a precipice, you mean that they are in a dangerous situation in which they are extremely close to disaster or failure. “The king now stands on the brink of a political precipice.” – Collins Dictionary (collinsdictionary.com).

 

Around me I see a complex world, a planet filled with hatred. This virulent animosity is more often than not, fueled by economic disparity cloaked in righteous indignation. Individual or group righteous indignation can arise from many sources but two main ones stick out: tribal and religious (and these two can be very, very intertwined). Ours is a world stuck in a cycle of conflict generation after generation. True believers vs infidels, red vs blue, baby killers vs individual rights advocates, blue eyes vs brown eyes, and dark skin versus light skin pigment; pick one, pick two, and you will find people willing to kill and die for the distinctions. But if you dig down the real battle is about who gets more rice, beans, bread and drinkable water.

 

Samuel Clemens in his later years was bitter. He endured the death of most of his family, an era of economic depression, bankruptcy, and his works falling out of favor. He was a learned man and a skilled writer. As his fortunes declined and his woes increased people abandoned him. Ultimately, the world’s ugliness beat him down and he hated the world and its people for it. I am not there yet, but I can get there. Still, I have some small measure of hope left alive inside of me that the world can right itself at least enough to avoid climatological or nuclear destruction based on divisions that at their root are economic.

 

The world needs complex answers, not simple ones. We are far beyond the stage where “simple” fixes anything. But yet we yearn for easy answers. We long for quick fixes.

 

Watching America from afar it seems many people just want an authoritarian to step in and make things right. This is the path of people looking for an easy fix and it won't work. The person they are drawn to is not someone who has the demeanor, the intellect, the vision or the stamina to fix all the things needing to be addressed and addressed fast. The person they are drawn to is not a consensus builder, but rather someone who plays on racial, sexual, and economic prejudices.

My old law school professor once said, “If you want the A you must do the work.” The man I am speaking of has never been willing to do the hard work, and do it honestly. Bluster and rage will not conceal the fact that his primary talents are manipulating balance sheets and crushing the little guys hired to work for his companies. He doesn’t have the capacity to do the work, he has never had it.

 

Authoritarians don’t have an impressive record of fixing problems or treating citizens fairly or well. Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong-Un, Putin, Franco, Pinochet, Salazar, the Duvaliers and the list goes on. They didn’t listen to competing, rational voices in opposition, they erased them. Pretty much each and every one of them had a slogan containing an implied promise of moving forward and making things better. Their PR people may not have come up with something as catchy as “Make America Great Again,” but it was all the same noise and gibberish. Wealth flowed one way and pain and deprivation the other.

 

Children are dying and hostages are at risk. Large swaths of the world’s waters are severely polluted. Global temperatures are increasing, the last 12 months being the hottest on record. Oceans fill with trash and microplastics. Deserts are expanding and ice caps are melting. A selfish, angry authoritarian is not the solution to our problems. Please don’t buy into bad choices based on a desire for a return to a world that never really existed. Face the world we have and work to fix it.  To my mind that means abandoning the previous President and moving on.

Grace Notes Late at Night

 

Grace notes – 1: a musical note added as an ornament especially : appoggiatura.

2 : a small addition or embellishment.

 

A small addition or embellishment…that second definition doesn’t quite capture how we use the phrase in non-musical parlance. A grace note in our lives is something lovely, but not a major theme of our existence. A grace note could be joy discovered serendipitously. Or it could be something that was bound to happen, but was beautiful in its occurrence. If you think about it I am sure you can come up with a wide array of grace notes populating small spaces in your life. For me a night spent in some cottages on the north side of Prince Edward Island, the Blue Crest Cottages to be exact, drinking a beer on a late August's chilly night while watching the northern lights is a perfect example of a grace note. 

So many nights in these recent years I have found myself at 2 in the morning contemplating the, "What should I have done?"s. I have played out the 'I really screwed that up's, and the 'I can’t make it right's of my life. There is almost always a great deal of reflection, (I guess that is the best term), I do before eventually drifting off to sleep. Intellectually I know the past is the past and it cannot be changed but sometimes I wish it could. Yeah, I know it is pointless allowing such thoughts to steal the hours I should sleep from me, but I can’t help it.

I think my parents hard wired my guilt, second guessing, and my near constant angst into my soul. Okay maybe it was them in conjunction with the Baptist church. Remember kids the part that burns most in hell is the part you sin with. At this point we stop and fan our nethers. Between the need to achieve and the fear of doing the wrong thing, my head just got so damn weird. Years of living have added only more crossed wires and smoking junction boxes.

When I first retired I had about two years where I fell asleep immediately.  The stresses from work retreated and the vacuum they left in my psyche was so large. When my head hit the pillow I was drawn deep down into the dark abyss of dreamless sleep. But with plotting the move to Portugal and making decisions about stuff back in Michigan the angsty second guessing and night nerves returned. Don’t get me wrong the move was a good move, but there were so many moving pieces that it tripped the old switch releasing doubts and angst about almost every decision I have ever made.

The other night as I waited for sleep to come I thought of a moment I had not thought of in years. I was in my dorm room during late fall 1977.  It was just turning five in the evening. As I stood there looking out the leaded panes of my window to the west the light through the trees was a beautiful amber color. The bells of the nearby People’s Church began to strike the hour. My room's radiator clanged as if it was thinking about supplying some heat, something it never did. Music drifted down the hall, something very mellow and mellifluous. For a moment, a small moment I was empty of all doubt and angst. I was happy and at peace. I felt at ease in the universe. A grace note in my life's symphony, that is what that particular moment was.

The duration of the moment I was remembering lasted maybe a minute but certainly not two. As the chimes stopped I turned, closed the door, and headed down to the scrum of the dinner line in the cafeteria. As brief as it was, that moment was a real grace note in my life. When I focused on that moment, taken out of context of all the college dorm drama (and God was there drama), I realized pondering all the what ifs, and why did I dos, didn’t matter. I have had a good life so far.Yeah it has been, and remains, an enjoyable run. And as my mind bounced around looking for more grace notes, those small moments of joy, sleep came quickly.

Your transition to sleep from the waking hours may not be as troubled as mine. You may have few or no regrets. Still, there are times when we all lose focus, when we struggle with the nonsense that surrounds us. When those uneasy moments overtake you look for the grace notes you have accumulated over your life's span. These collected moments of joy and beauty remind us of the importance of living in the moment and being accepting of life's wonder. Cherish your grace notes.

Sunday, and Suddenly I am Humming the Doxology

The choices we make daily make us who we are. As today opens in front of you, choose compassion.

Hersch Wilson

Lisboa offers me a bright Sunday morning today. Been raining a bit. Two huge storms passed north of us causing much damage in the region of France.  However, big wave surfers must be ecstatic.  Nazare waves are supposed to be 30 meters or more. Those 98-foot-tall waves are something I would love to see. Might grab a bus and head there tomorrow. 

 I said it has been raining for quite some time now.  Seeing the sun and comparing two different forecasting apps I decided to hang some laundry out on the line. First load is washed and hung out to dry. Second load is in the machine and will go out in about half an hour. The final load won’t hit the line until one.  If it doesn’t dry by sunset, I am off to a self-service lavendaria for 15 minutes of drying on the high cycle.

I opened the window when I sat down to type. I am listening to the bells of one of the igrejias ringing right now which means mass is about to begin.  Shortly I will hear the strains of old familiar protestant hymns coming from the evangelical Baptist church across the courtyard. I look forward to this. Hearing How Great Thou Art and In the Garden in Portuguese resets my body’s calendar and refreshes my soul. Amazing how a simple melody can carry you away and lift your spirits.

This week was filled with stuff we did or got done. On Monday morning we replaced Francie’s subway pass. We thought she dropped it at the Baxia-Chiado metro stop but it was not turned in. Luckily it had only two days left on it. Getting the replacement took about an hour and a half of waiting time, a fast turnaround by Portuguese bureaucratic standards. On Monday afternoon having found our correct health center we stopped by and applied for our national health numbers. We were told it might take a bit to process this.  I submitted our request at 4:30 pm and we had both cards by 11 am the next morning. Such a turnaround from what I have been told is extremely fast. 

On Thursday night we attended to the symphony in the Gulbenkian hall. The pieces performed were a short symphony by Mozart and his Great Mass. I was raised on rock n’ roll and it was only when my oldest was in an orchestra that I got exposure to the classical. The symphony was wonderful and the Great Mass was very enjoyable.  I am not an avid fan of operatic soprano voices and the mass had a great deal of that singing. I got tickets for a New Year’s Eve concert by the Gulbenkian choir at the Sao Roque church. Loren my youngest has agreed to accompany me to this.

On Friday we travelled to a Christmas bazaar held by the various diplomatic corps with embassies in Lisbon. The French, Chinese and Indians had the biggest booths. Lots of colorful wares. We picked up a tanjine from the Moroccans and a table runner from the Indians. The tanjine has a number of preparation steps before it can be used. Right now, it is soaking in water for twenty-four hours. The drying in the oven and the oiling will come later. The table runner can be seen above.

After the bazaar we had lunch at a mostly vegetarian place. I had lentil meatballs and Francie had grilled tuna salad. Thefood was delicious and the company, the folks who invited us to the bazaar, was absolutely fantastic.

Yesterday was low, low key. Hit the men’s coffee hour at another location. Taught someone how to use Google Translate'sphoto application. Last week I gave him instructions on how to renew his metro pass at a nearby ATM, well any nearby ATM. The highpoint of the rest of the day was buying a pitcher for my ice tea. We also bought our first real Christmas decorations, a garland and balls to go on the table where our router is. What am I saying? The real high point was Francie’s dinner preparation, osso buco made with ox tail. Really, really tasty. Low and slow is the way to go.

Francie said something on the phone last night to a friend. Moving to Lisboa has been like moving into the dormsfreshman year at university. Nobody knows anyone and nobody knows how anything works. So, when you hear someone who speaks the same way as you do, you talk to them. When you go out with people you learn their backstories and you share yours. This is in some ways, the most connected I have felt to people in years.

 

Senator in Response to Your Question I can Unequivocally Say , I Am Not Now, Nor Have I Ever Been, Nor Will I Ever be, Courageous.

 

Courage, according to the Oxford dictionary, has two meanings. The first is, “the ability to do something that frightens one.” The second is, “strength in the face of pain or grief.” Over the months since Francie and I moved to Portugal a number of people have used the term courage to describe our experience leaving America as emigrants to Portugal. I really don’t think that is the right word.

Clearly the second definition is not applicable. The only grief or pain associated with our move is those pangs of hurt we feel watching our birth country stumble toward authoritarianism. Yes, I am talking about the Trump/MAGA juggernaut toward acceptance of the former guy’s “Do what I say and the Constitution be damned" mantra. Yes, I am also talking about the House of Representatives electing an election denier to the speakership. Leaving in one sense probably shows more of a defeatist attitude than courage if you boil it down to the essence. But sadness was not the prime motivator of our move.

Coming to Portugal was more like accepting the truth of a logical syllogism. I know it doesn’t have the same ring for someone to say, ‘you are such realists for having moved to Portugal.’ After my second bout of cancer, I gave up on my belief that I would work until I croaked at my desk. Following my surgery which took a fifth of my left kidney, I was pretty sure that the expiration date stamped on my bottom had moved up and no longer said, "Best before April 2033.” The date was probably a great deal closer to a best used by date of April 2026. 

Having decided that I probably don’t have a lot more time on this planet I started thinking what have I, what have we worked for all these years? Well first there was a desire to get out of Michigan's f#%king cold. Four seasons my ass, Michigan is really a place of 8 ½ months of cold and clouds most of that sprinkled with snow of some depth. 1 month wraps around those months with mud and false promises of beautiful springs and lovely falls (invariably a harsh rain comes and destroys the fall colors. Alternatively, it gets hot in late May and suddenly summer is just there.) The short remaining months are hot, humid and filled with tornado sirens.

Next there was the desire for the sea and fresh seafood. Both of us were water babies. Francie was raised in Volusia County and Daytona Beach and its waves were her ingrained memories. Me, my memories come from somewhere farther up the Atlantic coast , more specifically Ocean City, NJ, America’s family resort. The smells of salt water and frying flounder are wired into my head as the epitome of life’s best things. Watching waves for hours on end, well there is nothing better. Forty years in the Midwest of America seem like just passing the time.

Given those two critical motivating factors we looked about in America. The left coast was way, way ….way too expensive for two people who had worked in the heartland for forty years. The south was too, too…way too MAGA. Thus, we had to look at other countries. 

Loved Victoria, BC. However, it is expensive and old geezers can't legally retire there. I thought about requesting political asylum but the Canadian immigration folks have not been receptive to that argument from leftist US Democrats with 401(k)s in the past. So where could we find a stable government, decent health care and a not oppressive cost of living? If you have been reading the papers over the past five years Portugal is always near the top of the lists. And we had been to Portugal and liked it. And it is coastal. And there is really good seafood.

Okay, emigration paperwork is onerous. Opening a bank account is byzantine. Juggling the cash needed to get an apartment, gather furniture for the apartment, and airline tickets to our destination was a hassle (and obviously more expensive by half than we thought it would be). But we didn’t have any real fear.  There was some doubt, the “Are we really doing this?" moments. Doubt is not fear. Facing hassles is not the same as facing dire diagnoses or standing up to home intruders. Those moments generate real fear and require tremendous courage in response.

The closest I came to fear in this whole process was when a couple of butterflies cropped up in my stomach. This was as I rode the train up to my immigration hearing here in Portugal. Seriously, that's the worst of it. Maybe it is because there is an escape hatch. If at any point we decide we don’t like our life here anymore an airline ticket home is not that expensive. It would take us four months of rent to buy out our lease. We would take a few thousand dollars loss on the furnishings we bought, but I have pissed away more money on lesser things. We have a parachute and a ripcord if it all becomes too overwhelming.

In my mind moving here from Michigan wasn’t really that much different from moving to Florida. However, there are no asshats with Trump 2024 flags planted in their rusted pickup truck beds, waving wildly just behind the gun rack in the back window. Courage no, wanderlust filled yes. Crazy, yes. Impractical, yes. Longing for and looking for serendipity, yes. Maybe even adventurous in the sense you call somebody eating raw kibbe for the first time adventurous. We aren’t fearless explorers. We are those kids just out of college who want to wander Europe with a backpack, a dog-eared travel guide and raging hormones. Well, we are those kids just with more money, grayer hair, a need for more privacy, a need for clean sheets, a need for regular showers and with just a tad less hormonal lust. Oh, the guidebook is now on our iPad.