More Backstory....

This article gets at one of the main reasons why I fled the USA in order to live abroad: I Am Not My Job.

While I wasn't coming from an area as ridiculously expensive as NYC, I find the USA to be expensive in general, and my life there included some necessary evils in order to maintain a functional, productive life. (cars, mainly).

I was in the camp that pursued the day job and relegated my passions to spare time. Which, as anyone with a semi-professional 9-5 can attest, means that you're working far more than 40 hours per week, most likely commuting, and very little of that leftover energy typically goes toward passion-promoting activities. You just wanna sit the hell down when you have the chance.

Which is why my novels went untouched for years and my writing craft totally withered into a crusty shell of its former glory. My dreams were still there, but the time to accomplish them continued to evaporate as the years marched on. The majority of my available energy went into common domestic tasks, socializing with friends, and getting my yoga done (and not even religiously).

The move abroad was necessary for me to feel like I was finally getting a chance to focus. Ditch some of the responsibilities that felt, to me, like they were clogging my plumbing (insurance bills, car maintenance expenses, buying gas) instead of allowing safe passage of goals and inspiration. Some people can feel this way perfectly fine in their hometown or adult landscape. I, however, did not. I felt constantly "busy" and never "productive", as the author mentions in her article. And I needed, desperately, to make a change to more productive and far less busy.

My move to Chile has afforded me this. In a huge way. Although it's a relatively expensive Latin American country, my lifestyle costs are minimal, and I am for the first time living in a way that feels authentic to me. Now when someone asks me what I do, my answer is "I am a writer." I still have a day job (though sometimes writing IS the day job), but the difference is that I feel confident and secure in responding this way because my passion has finally taken precedence in my daily life.

The author of the article says she doesn't advocate that everyone move to the mountains like she did, but hopes that other young creatives can begin to consider different home bases as they seek to pursue their craft. And while I don't think moving to the mountains (or the seaside...or South America...or Chile, for example) is hard and fast necessary, I DO recommend such a move. Move to the Catskills, or the Andes, or Costa Rica, or into a strange commune on the other side of the US, or into a distant uncle's cabin in Oregon, or to the freakin' Phillipines. Try it. See what happens. Because if such a move or adventure is possible, your creativity can only improve because of it. I did have to move my home base to be able to milk the sweet teat of creativity. And look at what has come sputtering forth: heinous analogies.

Now that I've got some of my creative goals underway and I know more of what it feels like to be living a creative life as opposed to waiting for the weekends to maybe re-visit that old story I stopped working on five years ago, I feel confident that I can someday come back to my home country and effectively be a creative writer.

Maybe not quite yet, though.

But someday.

Signs of Change

There comes a point in life when you look around and you realize little things have changed despite your best efforts.

I won't lie, when I started dating the Argentinian Jorge, I wasn't too keen on learning Argentinian Spanish or adopting his customs. I don't know why -- it just wasn't on my agenda. I had come to Chile and that felt to be enough of a cultural endeavor.

Eating lunch at 4 or 5 pm? Dinner at 10? Drinking mate (pronounced MAH-tay) instead of coffee? Bread and/or mayonnaise with every meal? WTF with 'vos' and 'desis'? Sorry, the correct terminology is "tu" and "dices". Thanks. 

Both of us being ex-pats in Chile, it hasn't been too hard to concentrate on learning Chilean culture and Spanish instead of Argentinian. I at least have an excuse to resist mate, I figured.

But then comes the day-in and day-out. There's the fact that the person I hear and speak to most is Jorge, and no matter how hard I wish it otherwise, he will never use the tu form when he speaks. There's the fact that when he gets excited, upset, impassioned or irritated, his Italian-influenced Spanish starts flooding out, and I understand even less of what he's saying (when I'm not giggling). There's the fact that he takes me to his country to meet his entire sprawling Argentinian family, and we spend lazy afternoons sharing mate and getting to know one another and I begin to understand the real meaning of taking mate.

It's the end of the year so I'm looking around at my life, taking stock of where I am and what I'm doing, asking myself if I want to keep doing this or maybe take another leap. Asking myself hard questions (Do I like what I'm doing? Do I feel healthy? Am I happy?), looking at other areas (a move to Ecuador? What about Columbia? Costa Rica?), thinking about other lifestyles I might want to explore.

And while the swirl of questions continues dense like a cloud around my head, I look around my immediate area -- my desk, my plethora of pens, the journals, the craft supplies that I always give away but continue to follow me and accumulate no matter what country I'm in -- and I notice something suspicious.

This is mate. My very own mate.

As in, I own this mate set.

I'm drinking mate, by myself, and I might not have even made coffee this morning.

And maybe some mornings I wake up and prefer mate over coffee.

And maybe sometimes I look at Jorge and in my head I use 'vos' (though I would never say it to his face). (Yet.)

And maybe yesterday I slathered mayo all over toasted bread and then ate it. Happily.

And pretty much every day I eat lunch after 2pm. 

And when I get excited, upset, impassioned or irritated with Jorge, I find his same Italian-Spanish mannerisms and expressions slipping out.

When did all of this happen???

2013 brought a lot of unexpected lessons, changes, cycles and more. It has been, by far, the best year of my life. If I can end the year thinking 'vos' and drinking mate over coffee, then anything is possible. 2014 is on the cusp of existence and I couldn't be more excited for what lay ahead. I lift my mate to you all as we close up this lovely year and embark upon new journeys.

Salud!

Sharing Forks and Sitting on the Floor: Thanksgiving in A Vagabond House

I live in what I affectionately term a "Vagabond House".

This is a house which is rented for 3 months or more (sometimes up to a year) by bonafide transients, typically (and in my case) foreigners without legal residency in the host country and with plans to move forward to some destination once said lease is up.

Due to the nature of the "vagabond house", it doesn't make sense to invest in too much furniture, because we'll just have to sell it. We have a stove, a washer, a fridge, mattresses, and some left over surfaces from whoever lived here before. Also, we bought one couch and 12 plastic chairs.

Everything else we have in here was constructed by us (i.e. Jorge, or Martin and Amanda....okay, mostly just not me) from dumpster diving acquisitions: a side table which Jorge nailed together from disparate found pieces, which he and I then lovingly painted wild colors; multiple crates that now hold tomato, chard and kale plants; decorative items such as the rusty children's bike that hangs suspended from our ceiling, etc.

While the Vagabond House doesn't have everything in a material sense, it has everything we need. (Well, a real French Press might be nice, but...hey. Vagabonds can't be choosers.)

But the key word there is "we"; the 5 of us that live in this house.

The Vagabond House doesn't have everything to accommodate the oh, let's say, 15 guests who are planning on showing up at your door for an Ex-Patriot Orphan Friendsgiving.

When my friend Peter and I were talking about Thanksgiving plans back in early November, it was a natural decision – yes, the feast must be here!  We have a very large house with an established reputation for fun times and hosting. Despite the lack of accoutrements for said wildly-large-Thanksgiving-feast, I told myself, “Hey. It’ll be fine. It’ll work out somehow.”

It was around one day before Thanksgiving that I realized that it might not actually work out. My guest list was 20+ people, with an established rule that “any American who doesn’t have a place to spend the holiday is welcome to come”, which meant that the 20+ people could swell considerably, depending on how many adrift Americans were found.

Aside from the 20+ guests, I realized something else: only 5 of us live in the house. Which means we bought/inherited our dinnerware based on this number. We have 4 coffee mugs, 9 regular glasses, and 2 wine glasses. There were less than 10 each of forks, spoons and knives; two pots for boiling water; one large casserole dish type thing that wasn’t a casserole dish but could be used as one; and one large bowl for mixing and serving purposes. Furthermore, we have 8 large dinner plates, 6 bowls, and one tiny plate that isn’t good for anything except, well, a pat of butter.

The math in my head went something like this: 6 + 5 + 9! / 17 – 4(x) + 33 =…..DRASTIC SHORTAGE.

The solution? Strongly urge people to bring their own cups. And silverware. And go buy a couple more casserole dishes.

I did these things, and on the morning of our Thanksgiving, we started baking and preparing extra early in preparation for the hassles of transferring dishes into holding bays while certain things were used and then unoccupied and then eventually re-transferred and…phew.

But I didn’t mention the best part—the Chilean stoves. Instead of clearly-defined temperature marks and an ability to know the difference between broil and bake, the Chilean Gas Oven features an infuriating knob with no lines, no numbers, and no indicator as to whether or not you are scorching the crap out of your casserole or just lightly heating it for 12 hours. "Turning it on" requires a terrifying 10 seconds of sticking open flame into two inconveniently placed holes where, once it lights, sometimes you can smell your eyebrows burning.

But you know what? Despite the shortage of items, implements and objects typically associated with Thanksgiving-Without-A-Hitch, despite not having an electric stove or any idea if I was baking at 245 degrees or 750 degrees….it worked out perfectly.

I made a literal vat of homemade mashed potatoes, the Bradford-Famous Corn Crop, AND vegan stuffing. Not to mention Amanda put TWO turkeys into the Chilean Thinly-Veiled-Inferno Oven, and neither were scorched, singed, or lightly caressed by heat for half a day.

Corn Crap Close-Up

It was a wholly successful Ex-Patriot Thanksgiving: made somewhat easier by the fact that the final count came to 17.

My general premise was as follows: any attending American should bring a homemade and/or beloved home dish, and all non –Americans bring something for drinking purposes. This way, we maintain the “typical food” of the holiday while nobody breaks the bank on supplying beverages for so many people. In addition to what Amanda and I created, we also were treated to the following dishes: a basic salad, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, apple crisp, bread pudding, cheesecake, home made bread, and pumpkin pie with cream. Oh – and a crap ton of wine.

Not too shabby, right?

I don’t know if I would have ever agreed to host even 17 people in the USA prior to moving abroad, much less the original estimate of over 20. I think I might have been too overwhelmed by a perceived "lack" of things for such a big number.

But this year, as I saw the number of guests climb and the number of dinner plates remain resolutely at 8, what became very clear to me was the following idea, which has permeated my life abroad as I follow the regular rhythms of life under very different circumstances:  if I have something to share and you have something to share, we can make something work. Thanksgiving 2013 proved to me just how far you can go with far less than what you’re accustomed to.

Sure, most of my guests were sitting on the floor (re: vagabond housing), leaning against the wall, or otherwise disobeying every rule your grandmother ever set forth for proper dinner etiquette on a holiday. I mean, for god’s sake, there was no autumn leaf-themed napkins!

But we were happy as hell. Delicious food, excellent company, and just enough spoons to go around.

Digging in! 

Me and Chelsea went first -- no need to delay,

we Americans know what to get extras on first. 

Happy International Orphan Friendsgiving!

And like every Thanksgiving in the States...there's always leftovers, no matter how much you stress about feeding everyone. We had enough turkey and potatoes left over to have a Thanksgiving on the Ocean the next day!!

Thanks for a great GraciasDando, Valpo!