Dan, thanks for mentioning the Based In Paris Immigrants Bill of Rights. I liked this part of your article, "...don’t sell the cure without naming the price: a day spent here is a day spent not there."
People often misunderstand that living abroad is a trade-off, not a cure.
A lot of the "Fixies" I read do not live in their new country full time, work for a European company w/ a European salary, have kids in public schools. And, like in Portugal and Spain, may not be subject to the same taxes as locals. Or, in France, they live under the tax threshold to avoid France's high marginal tax rates. When they "split their time", it is usually to, understandably, legally avoid the taxes. (Not starting a policy debate. It is a fact Europe has high taxes.)
I am not calling them *bad*, but they don't paint a full picture.
Of course where we live matters! I lived in Chicago for years, and it just wasn't for me. But, I loved DC.
I wish everyone well on their journey. I wish everyone generosity of spirit towards those whose journey takes other twists and turns.
PS- Perhaps there is a metaphor in there that with the decline of traditional media, everyone struggles to live in the gray. ;)
Thanks for reading! I enjoyed the realism of your Bill of Rights post. It's easy to get prety dreamy out here in expat land. Yes, it's a trade-off for sure! Things look different when you're all in, right? Agreed about the news, too. Even in (mostly) cheerful Expat Substack I feel an urge to start lining people up in fairly abritrary categories, just to make a point! Here's to the gray, at home and abroad :)
Such an important point- a lot of the Fixies fly in and out as they please. And use Europe as a either a backdrop to their instagram account or a jumping board to other destinations. Or, in case they actually do live in Europe, they may have just arrived, are independently wealthy and throw money at literally every problem they encounter.
Was thinking about this...it's certainly true sometimes, and probably more so in Europe! NZ is just too damn faraway. Most Americans who move here are all in.
Which makes me realize I've missed something in these categories: The truest Fixie is the immigrant. Even just talking about Americans here--richer, generally, than most--I've met a number of folks who moved to NZ, permanently and *sight unseen*, with the explicit goal of remaking (fixing!) their entire lives. Nurses. Farmers. Teachers. They don't divide their time. They won't be going back.
So maybe the Fixie I'm talking about is just a subcategory of expat. Which of course the expat/immigrant converation is wide and deep. Hmmmmm. I love a good definitional argument....Thanks to you both for your thoughtful comments!
Wow Dan, you opened yet another line of conversation here. Immigrants. Who, like expats are not a homogeneous group. There are so many types of immigrants. Many actually keep a foot in both the host and home country. But then there are those who settle in the host country for ever (and not all of them because they believe the new place is 'fixing' them, but because the place they came from was so fu**ed they can't go back).
I've also done some work in the past on these issues and particularly looked at how migrant remittances are used in home countries to transform communities of origin.
In Ethiopia and Burkina Faso (and elsewhere in Africa) there is a lot of return migration. People go get what they need, and unless there is nowhere to return, they often go back.
Anyway, I am rambling perhaps, but yes, lots of material to think about and so, it's back to the multitudes that the world and human beings contain, that uncle Walt spoke about. This is the beauty of our world. Never a dull moment. Always something to learn, something to get excited about. As long as we stay curious.
That sounds like amazing work! Yes indeed, all kinds of all of us out there. When I lived in Mexico (anecdotally, not actual research like yours!) there were those who left forever and those who'd come back after ten years living in some American city I'd never even been to. Those were interesting conversations, for sure. Always something to learn, indeed. God bless a lovely comment section, thanks for writing!
I agree. And, of course, I begrudge *no one* their happiness or success. But, it is misleading to represent Europe as a solution. When, in reality, millions of dollars and/or family money is the solution. ;)
When I interviewed Judy Witts Francini of Simply Davina, an American emigrant and longtime resident of Florence, she said that if you come to Italy with money, you can absolutely have an Under the Tuscan Sun lifestyle. As Ellie mentions, the other side of that coin is avoiding taxes by living only a few months a year in Europe and keeping your tax residence in the US. Also, shout out to Ellie for coining the European Dream Industrial Complex to describe the phenomenon of selling Americans on the fantasy of Europe as a cure for all the ills of modern American life.
Ok, as the lucky soul who escaped classification, I will be the first to comment. (1)
Damn, Dan! I loved this. Interesting and well written. And after the Elizabeth Bishop at the end, the video of the trees nearly made me weep with the sense of place it conveys. I couldn't say why. Maybe because I know that's a there I will never be. Maybe because it reminds me of a view from a library in Barcelona that I may never see again.
It's interesting to see someone round up the debate and start to moderate it. I had even considered doing it myself, but I'm happy to let you take the lead. Now I just need to decide whether to weigh in and declare a position (not that anyone is really asking that of me).
What you don't do here, friend Dan, at least not explicitly, is take a side yourself. But I infer from what you write that you align yourself with the Wherevers at this stage of the game. Or maybe you, like me, see yourself to some extent on both sides of the debate?
(1) Am I the first person ever to have a footnote in a comment? If so, go me! Yes, Elizabeth, who is a lovely person, had me on her podcast. But Kirsten Powers has also asked to interview me. So where does that leave me? Hmmmm....
Thanks, Gregory! So glad the poem hit. It sprang on me when I was almost done writing this thing, and that's one that doesn't let go. The Welly wind is a THING indeed, one I still haven't got my head around. That bittersweet never-see-again feeling, though--that's a bonus & cost of this life, ain't it?
I tried to box you in, but no luck! In fact at one point I had your 'changed me' essay marked as a (gentle) subtweet of Elizabeth's piece, but the loss bit complicated things nicely. You're a Whatever by years out of country but cheerful enough about it to be a Fixie. Ain't these debates fun? Make a big fierce definition, and then luagh about how meaningless they are in the end.
Me, I think I started this piece with my wintry soul leaning a bit Wherever. As a former reporter I learned long ago to learned not to believe anyone selling a fix...But writing this pulled me back towards my own Fixie side. I mean, if you ain't got some Fixie in your heart, why would you leave home in the first place? These are strange days out there. Is it crazy to think our puppy-dog American enthusiasm for making friends with the whole damn world might still be a force for good? Sure, as long as we keep it humble & keep it grounded. Writing helps me do this. Seems to help you, too. We're on almost exactly opposite sides of the globe, but I wish we could haggle it out over beer.
Elizabeth is awesome! I really enjoyed that podcast you two did, especially the bits about language. It's a format you both seem very at home in. More, please. I'm sure Kirsten is lovely. Take that interview, man, and tell her hi from me. We'll be reading & listening!
Dan, I agree with you so often I'm afraid I'll be sore. Yes, there is something genuinely American about the whole Fixie mindset—which is ironic, when you consider that what many of them are promoting is leaving America.
You have convinced me to write a piece about this. Maybe I can have it ready for next Friday (tomorrow it's talking to strangers). We will see. I wish we could have that beer in the meantime!
Loved this too. Absolutely brilliant writing and so thoughtful. Now, I’m going out on a limb here, but I think that our man Dan is both a Whatever and a Fixer. He defies simple dichotomies, so that even when pixilated, he refuses to see the world in black and white.
Thanks, Elizabeth!! Glad you enjoyed it. My hat's off to you for kicking off this whole debate! Your piece is where this split started, and has never been far from my mind. Yeah, I'm pretty much both. Years in the college classrooms has honed my need for a 'Yes, but' turn to something near pathological. The world is so beautiful and the world is GREY :)
I think Dan is Walt Whitman. He is large and contains multitudes. But then so do most of us, which is why I find taking sides is silly and futile. I am sure there are moments when Fixies despair and feel lost and Wherevers think they are fixed.
Framing this one. Uncle Walt!!! Thanks, Liza! I've actually been reading Leaves of Grass again with my boy at night. Makes an American Fixie of even the most weathered soul. Agreed, these categories are all kind of silly, but much fun to write about. Walt would just make a very long list of all the expats on Earth. Maybe that's the next post :)
I've been back 'home' in Aotearoa NZ for 4 years now, and it still feels new. After 17 years in Scotland where I became an adult, loved, lost, loved again, became a mother, returning home was bittersweet. Things are different to how I remember, my friends have all moved on, NZ isnt the utopia i dreamed if while away. While being closer to my family is a blessing I treasure, I miss my other home. How is it that I still don't feel settled here?
Hi Keryn! This is lovely, thanks for sharing! Curious how NZ has changed in your eyes. I only have pandemic-and-after here, which is such a small lens. And yours is a dilemma Man, I think about a lot--the possibility or returning home to the US and feeling like it's not...home anymore? Not automatically, not in the bones? And then 'home' is such a hard thing to define anyways, you can totally go in circles trying to prove it to yourself one way or the other. Family helps, certainly. Wishing you a warm settled-enough feeling, wherever you settle. Wishing one for me too.
Moving piece, Dan. As I reflect on lives I've left behind, one in the shade of a mango tree in the middle of a large family compound in south-western in Burkina Faso; another in the foothills of Entoto mountain, my former home in Addis Ababa; and yet another scattered in the memory fragments of three different neighbourhoods I have lived in Lisbon since I first arrived here. I belong everywhere and nowhere, but I am not lost, though I sometimes don't have the words, in any of the languages I speak, to express my emotion. Sometimes, it is just an image, sometimes a lump in my throat, or a more pleasant bodily sensation. I cannot be everything everywhere all at once, or maybe I can? So much food for thought here, thank you for writing this.
Oh this is lovely! Could it be that final 'maybe' that keeps us going? Like we don't have to close the deal on being everywhere & everything, we just need to feel the tingle of that possibility. And the power of memory to do this travel--yes, I don't do that it enough. This mades me feel less lost. Thank you.
So YES and NO - after being a few elsewheres and now here for most of my life (so no classification anymore - tho maybe it's another classification)I think being elsewhere or another 'here' can fix some things, but it can break some things and yes can create new things, some to be broken and some to be fixed or not. Someone once told me (I think I'd been here about 8 years) that - even though most people had stopped asking me if/how "I liked 'it'," - I hadn't been here long enough to move past the scenery and the (then relatively) cheap house prices.
Having kids here (wherever you are - even if only for a while becomes a 'here') can make all the difference tho maybe they will grow up differently than you'd expect and maybe that's what you want - or not. Depending on how long you stay, there are weddings and illnesses, and sadly funerals and lifetimes you may miss being a part of and there is real grief - and even tho there are new ones 'here' - what does this do to the fixie or anyone?
But maybe more things are okay, they don't break - maybe there's a little crack in some that needs a bit of wabi sabi but some become irreparably broken and you save the shards in a box. That could happen anywhere because - you know - that's life.
For me - I dreamt of coming 'here; since I was 8 years old, but as an young adult there were many more real reasons I left, more reasons I stayed, various times I wish I hadn't - but hell, Dan the reasons I won't go back are completely different .
And then there's this thing in Bill W's The Big Book about 'doing a geographic'
Hi Susan! Oooh, 'doing a geographic', I'd never heard that one and it's a dagger for sure. I agree kids change the whole equation in ways good (easy) bad (hard). Thinking about how to write that one. Grief is in there, absolutely. I think I've been afraid to use that word, thanks for going there. Grief over years/days/whatever lost in the exchange (real grief) or for some vision of a complete unbroken self that never left home (fantasy).
I love the idea of some expat event horizon where you're no longer asked for a review (9/10, would definitely recommend!) But what's beyond that? Cheap houses are gone gone gone. I don't know about you but I don't ever want to move beyond the scenery, here or anywhere :)
I agree - the scenery never ceases to amaze though I often ran out of adjectives halfway round the obligatory harbour tour. I probably have the unique experience of being the only kid in Brooklyn who knew about Plunket nurses, Māori, and Lemon & Paeroa even if I didn't know how to pronounce them, or what a '&' was and I soon got tired of people asking me if that was the kangaroo/koala place.
“They never told me,” she writes, “that I would never feel like I belong anywhere, ever again.”
Oof! That hit home! After just a year in NZ, I went back to the UK, and lots of things about my hometown felt a bit wrong. It was like I'd slipped sidewise onto a slightly different track, and I knew there was no way to get back.
Hi Andrea! Yeah, that one stung me, too. Lucy's whole post was a kick in the guts (in the best possible way.) I feel the same. There's something in me that relaxes and lets go the moment I land in the US....and something in me that starts twitching in confusion about a week later. Home, who needs it, amirite??
Aye, where do I begin? You want to talk about cost? Well sure, NZ his hella expensive - and we knew this when we made the decision to come here in 2008, and the decision to return in 2019 following a four-year respite to the the Fatherland, or Motherland, or whatever we American ex-pats call where we came from.
But there are other ways to measure cost: What have we lost? What have we gained? Do I (we) even have a home anymore? I struggle with this when not hyper-focused on my work, my family, or what is for dinner today. We returned to the Pacific Northwest for 6 weeks from late Nov to early Jan - and while it was wonderful and life-affirming to see family and friends, we left knowing it is not our place, anymore.
While we did manage to purchase a home here, the interloper feelings persist. We'll become NZ citizens this year, with a 2nd passport to prove it. Move over, Jason Bourne. I am going to embrace it because, through all the trials (and there have been a few), WE'RE STILL HERE. My psyche is a mixture of apathy & optimism. Am looking after myself better - less booz, more tea, lots of water. But do want to get the new Popeye's in Lower Hutt, because, fried chicken is always a good elixir. And I maintain my commitment to writing - for nobody but myself. What else I gonna do?
Kiwiduck, wasting away from (near) the bottom of the world.
Hi Brad! Congrats, Jason Bourne!! What expat wouldn't want that power, and that wallet of passports?? He's a fantasy expat hero of mine from way back. To be so utterly blank & homeless you can land in any city anywhere (OK, Europe) and kick total ass. I think the citizenship ceremony is lovely. The one I went to in Carterton (not mine, alas) they gave everyone a potted native plant. I forget which one. That's a gift to look forward to!
I'm curious to hear more about home felt this time around. Funny how things shift, and don't. Wherever you go, right? That process by which a place feels 'ours.' I wish it were simple, like a light switch. I, too, struggle when I stop and look down.
But wherever you go...Popeye's is still damn good. I hope? Sometimes even fast food doesn't travel. Take care of yourself over there. Come to the workshop! Will holler when I'm over the hill. We're not wasting away! We're living! We're just a little pixelated sometimes!
WSJ hedcut is a major life achievement. But those newly arrived Austinites told me our mutual friend has a breakfast taco order NAMED AFTER HER at Mis Madres. AT MIS MADRES. Can you think of a bigger life accomplishment? I can only go home in shame
I'm a wherever, place won't fix you because you will always be there with you. I've moved more times than I can count, lived in every possible type of living situation and nothing did the trick. change has to come from within - I very firmly believe this.
And, I relate so much to what you say about moving abroad - you'll always be in between places, perhaps not quite at home (yet) at the new place and never again at home at the place you left. I'll always be someone who moved to NZ, wasn't born here. And I'll always be someone who left Belgium, doesn't quite understand what it's like up there anymore.
Thanks for this, Sophie! Working on that change within, for sure. Sometimes I know NZ is hleping with that, other times it's just me doing the lifting. 'Someone who moved, someone who left.' Nodding. We are defined by our verbs, no? Would be nice to be a noun someday. But better the movement and change, no?
Really lovely essay. You are so right that there have always been “lost souls” in the expat community. We lived in several countries and there are always a few expats who seem to be running away from something as much as towards it. Some people deliberately cut their roots.
Thanks, Kelly! Nice to hear from a fellow traveler. If you've lived out and about, you've know 'em. Sometimes you can tell without even asking that there was something back there they needed to cut off. That's fine, that's life. You just wish everyone a 'moving to' in their lives, I guess. And to find our own.
Yeah definitely both! And a lovely burden, too. You're a solver, Jessie. Always admired that about you. Hope Portugal is both a solution & just life, all at once.
Melancholy. It just zips itself into your baggage and goes wherever you go. Beautiful as ever, Dan
Thanks Leah! Oooh, that's good. And true. I shake that duffel out every time, but somehow it never empties
Dan, thanks for mentioning the Based In Paris Immigrants Bill of Rights. I liked this part of your article, "...don’t sell the cure without naming the price: a day spent here is a day spent not there."
People often misunderstand that living abroad is a trade-off, not a cure.
A lot of the "Fixies" I read do not live in their new country full time, work for a European company w/ a European salary, have kids in public schools. And, like in Portugal and Spain, may not be subject to the same taxes as locals. Or, in France, they live under the tax threshold to avoid France's high marginal tax rates. When they "split their time", it is usually to, understandably, legally avoid the taxes. (Not starting a policy debate. It is a fact Europe has high taxes.)
I am not calling them *bad*, but they don't paint a full picture.
Of course where we live matters! I lived in Chicago for years, and it just wasn't for me. But, I loved DC.
I wish everyone well on their journey. I wish everyone generosity of spirit towards those whose journey takes other twists and turns.
PS- Perhaps there is a metaphor in there that with the decline of traditional media, everyone struggles to live in the gray. ;)
Thanks for reading! I enjoyed the realism of your Bill of Rights post. It's easy to get prety dreamy out here in expat land. Yes, it's a trade-off for sure! Things look different when you're all in, right? Agreed about the news, too. Even in (mostly) cheerful Expat Substack I feel an urge to start lining people up in fairly abritrary categories, just to make a point! Here's to the gray, at home and abroad :)
Such an important point- a lot of the Fixies fly in and out as they please. And use Europe as a either a backdrop to their instagram account or a jumping board to other destinations. Or, in case they actually do live in Europe, they may have just arrived, are independently wealthy and throw money at literally every problem they encounter.
Was thinking about this...it's certainly true sometimes, and probably more so in Europe! NZ is just too damn faraway. Most Americans who move here are all in.
Which makes me realize I've missed something in these categories: The truest Fixie is the immigrant. Even just talking about Americans here--richer, generally, than most--I've met a number of folks who moved to NZ, permanently and *sight unseen*, with the explicit goal of remaking (fixing!) their entire lives. Nurses. Farmers. Teachers. They don't divide their time. They won't be going back.
So maybe the Fixie I'm talking about is just a subcategory of expat. Which of course the expat/immigrant converation is wide and deep. Hmmmmm. I love a good definitional argument....Thanks to you both for your thoughtful comments!
Wow Dan, you opened yet another line of conversation here. Immigrants. Who, like expats are not a homogeneous group. There are so many types of immigrants. Many actually keep a foot in both the host and home country. But then there are those who settle in the host country for ever (and not all of them because they believe the new place is 'fixing' them, but because the place they came from was so fu**ed they can't go back).
I've also done some work in the past on these issues and particularly looked at how migrant remittances are used in home countries to transform communities of origin.
In Ethiopia and Burkina Faso (and elsewhere in Africa) there is a lot of return migration. People go get what they need, and unless there is nowhere to return, they often go back.
Anyway, I am rambling perhaps, but yes, lots of material to think about and so, it's back to the multitudes that the world and human beings contain, that uncle Walt spoke about. This is the beauty of our world. Never a dull moment. Always something to learn, something to get excited about. As long as we stay curious.
That sounds like amazing work! Yes indeed, all kinds of all of us out there. When I lived in Mexico (anecdotally, not actual research like yours!) there were those who left forever and those who'd come back after ten years living in some American city I'd never even been to. Those were interesting conversations, for sure. Always something to learn, indeed. God bless a lovely comment section, thanks for writing!
I agree. And, of course, I begrudge *no one* their happiness or success. But, it is misleading to represent Europe as a solution. When, in reality, millions of dollars and/or family money is the solution. ;)
When I interviewed Judy Witts Francini of Simply Davina, an American emigrant and longtime resident of Florence, she said that if you come to Italy with money, you can absolutely have an Under the Tuscan Sun lifestyle. As Ellie mentions, the other side of that coin is avoiding taxes by living only a few months a year in Europe and keeping your tax residence in the US. Also, shout out to Ellie for coining the European Dream Industrial Complex to describe the phenomenon of selling Americans on the fantasy of Europe as a cure for all the ills of modern American life.
Ok, as the lucky soul who escaped classification, I will be the first to comment. (1)
Damn, Dan! I loved this. Interesting and well written. And after the Elizabeth Bishop at the end, the video of the trees nearly made me weep with the sense of place it conveys. I couldn't say why. Maybe because I know that's a there I will never be. Maybe because it reminds me of a view from a library in Barcelona that I may never see again.
It's interesting to see someone round up the debate and start to moderate it. I had even considered doing it myself, but I'm happy to let you take the lead. Now I just need to decide whether to weigh in and declare a position (not that anyone is really asking that of me).
What you don't do here, friend Dan, at least not explicitly, is take a side yourself. But I infer from what you write that you align yourself with the Wherevers at this stage of the game. Or maybe you, like me, see yourself to some extent on both sides of the debate?
(1) Am I the first person ever to have a footnote in a comment? If so, go me! Yes, Elizabeth, who is a lovely person, had me on her podcast. But Kirsten Powers has also asked to interview me. So where does that leave me? Hmmmm....
Thanks, Gregory! So glad the poem hit. It sprang on me when I was almost done writing this thing, and that's one that doesn't let go. The Welly wind is a THING indeed, one I still haven't got my head around. That bittersweet never-see-again feeling, though--that's a bonus & cost of this life, ain't it?
I tried to box you in, but no luck! In fact at one point I had your 'changed me' essay marked as a (gentle) subtweet of Elizabeth's piece, but the loss bit complicated things nicely. You're a Whatever by years out of country but cheerful enough about it to be a Fixie. Ain't these debates fun? Make a big fierce definition, and then luagh about how meaningless they are in the end.
Me, I think I started this piece with my wintry soul leaning a bit Wherever. As a former reporter I learned long ago to learned not to believe anyone selling a fix...But writing this pulled me back towards my own Fixie side. I mean, if you ain't got some Fixie in your heart, why would you leave home in the first place? These are strange days out there. Is it crazy to think our puppy-dog American enthusiasm for making friends with the whole damn world might still be a force for good? Sure, as long as we keep it humble & keep it grounded. Writing helps me do this. Seems to help you, too. We're on almost exactly opposite sides of the globe, but I wish we could haggle it out over beer.
Elizabeth is awesome! I really enjoyed that podcast you two did, especially the bits about language. It's a format you both seem very at home in. More, please. I'm sure Kirsten is lovely. Take that interview, man, and tell her hi from me. We'll be reading & listening!
Dan, I agree with you so often I'm afraid I'll be sore. Yes, there is something genuinely American about the whole Fixie mindset—which is ironic, when you consider that what many of them are promoting is leaving America.
You have convinced me to write a piece about this. Maybe I can have it ready for next Friday (tomorrow it's talking to strangers). We will see. I wish we could have that beer in the meantime!
Hell, American is just a state of mind (and a lot of exclamation marks!) Write on, brother. I want to read it!
Will do!!!!! !!!! !!
Loved this too. Absolutely brilliant writing and so thoughtful. Now, I’m going out on a limb here, but I think that our man Dan is both a Whatever and a Fixer. He defies simple dichotomies, so that even when pixilated, he refuses to see the world in black and white.
Thanks, Elizabeth!! Glad you enjoyed it. My hat's off to you for kicking off this whole debate! Your piece is where this split started, and has never been far from my mind. Yeah, I'm pretty much both. Years in the college classrooms has honed my need for a 'Yes, but' turn to something near pathological. The world is so beautiful and the world is GREY :)
Life is lived in the grey.
I think Dan is Walt Whitman. He is large and contains multitudes. But then so do most of us, which is why I find taking sides is silly and futile. I am sure there are moments when Fixies despair and feel lost and Wherevers think they are fixed.
Framing this one. Uncle Walt!!! Thanks, Liza! I've actually been reading Leaves of Grass again with my boy at night. Makes an American Fixie of even the most weathered soul. Agreed, these categories are all kind of silly, but much fun to write about. Walt would just make a very long list of all the expats on Earth. Maybe that's the next post :)
Yes, I think he's Walt Whereverman!
Bingo, Elizabeth. You nailed it.
It leaves you being popular :-)
No strangers, just friends you ain't met yet. How's that for a Fixie??
Hah!
Such fine writing, Dan. This piece must be good to have generated all these thoughtful and eloquent comments.
Thanks Dad! It's a good room out here, right??
I've been back 'home' in Aotearoa NZ for 4 years now, and it still feels new. After 17 years in Scotland where I became an adult, loved, lost, loved again, became a mother, returning home was bittersweet. Things are different to how I remember, my friends have all moved on, NZ isnt the utopia i dreamed if while away. While being closer to my family is a blessing I treasure, I miss my other home. How is it that I still don't feel settled here?
Hi Keryn! This is lovely, thanks for sharing! Curious how NZ has changed in your eyes. I only have pandemic-and-after here, which is such a small lens. And yours is a dilemma Man, I think about a lot--the possibility or returning home to the US and feeling like it's not...home anymore? Not automatically, not in the bones? And then 'home' is such a hard thing to define anyways, you can totally go in circles trying to prove it to yourself one way or the other. Family helps, certainly. Wishing you a warm settled-enough feeling, wherever you settle. Wishing one for me too.
Moving piece, Dan. As I reflect on lives I've left behind, one in the shade of a mango tree in the middle of a large family compound in south-western in Burkina Faso; another in the foothills of Entoto mountain, my former home in Addis Ababa; and yet another scattered in the memory fragments of three different neighbourhoods I have lived in Lisbon since I first arrived here. I belong everywhere and nowhere, but I am not lost, though I sometimes don't have the words, in any of the languages I speak, to express my emotion. Sometimes, it is just an image, sometimes a lump in my throat, or a more pleasant bodily sensation. I cannot be everything everywhere all at once, or maybe I can? So much food for thought here, thank you for writing this.
Oh this is lovely! Could it be that final 'maybe' that keeps us going? Like we don't have to close the deal on being everywhere & everything, we just need to feel the tingle of that possibility. And the power of memory to do this travel--yes, I don't do that it enough. This mades me feel less lost. Thank you.
i love you, big brother.
I love you too!!
Damn great piece Dan
So YES and NO - after being a few elsewheres and now here for most of my life (so no classification anymore - tho maybe it's another classification)I think being elsewhere or another 'here' can fix some things, but it can break some things and yes can create new things, some to be broken and some to be fixed or not. Someone once told me (I think I'd been here about 8 years) that - even though most people had stopped asking me if/how "I liked 'it'," - I hadn't been here long enough to move past the scenery and the (then relatively) cheap house prices.
Having kids here (wherever you are - even if only for a while becomes a 'here') can make all the difference tho maybe they will grow up differently than you'd expect and maybe that's what you want - or not. Depending on how long you stay, there are weddings and illnesses, and sadly funerals and lifetimes you may miss being a part of and there is real grief - and even tho there are new ones 'here' - what does this do to the fixie or anyone?
But maybe more things are okay, they don't break - maybe there's a little crack in some that needs a bit of wabi sabi but some become irreparably broken and you save the shards in a box. That could happen anywhere because - you know - that's life.
For me - I dreamt of coming 'here; since I was 8 years old, but as an young adult there were many more real reasons I left, more reasons I stayed, various times I wish I hadn't - but hell, Dan the reasons I won't go back are completely different .
And then there's this thing in Bill W's The Big Book about 'doing a geographic'
'Wherever you go - there you are'
And ...Oh (big sigh) that poem
Hi Susan! Oooh, 'doing a geographic', I'd never heard that one and it's a dagger for sure. I agree kids change the whole equation in ways good (easy) bad (hard). Thinking about how to write that one. Grief is in there, absolutely. I think I've been afraid to use that word, thanks for going there. Grief over years/days/whatever lost in the exchange (real grief) or for some vision of a complete unbroken self that never left home (fantasy).
I love the idea of some expat event horizon where you're no longer asked for a review (9/10, would definitely recommend!) But what's beyond that? Cheap houses are gone gone gone. I don't know about you but I don't ever want to move beyond the scenery, here or anywhere :)
I agree - the scenery never ceases to amaze though I often ran out of adjectives halfway round the obligatory harbour tour. I probably have the unique experience of being the only kid in Brooklyn who knew about Plunket nurses, Māori, and Lemon & Paeroa even if I didn't know how to pronounce them, or what a '&' was and I soon got tired of people asking me if that was the kangaroo/koala place.
“They never told me,” she writes, “that I would never feel like I belong anywhere, ever again.”
Oof! That hit home! After just a year in NZ, I went back to the UK, and lots of things about my hometown felt a bit wrong. It was like I'd slipped sidewise onto a slightly different track, and I knew there was no way to get back.
Hi Andrea! Yeah, that one stung me, too. Lucy's whole post was a kick in the guts (in the best possible way.) I feel the same. There's something in me that relaxes and lets go the moment I land in the US....and something in me that starts twitching in confusion about a week later. Home, who needs it, amirite??
Thanks, Dan, for stirring the pot a little more.
Aye, where do I begin? You want to talk about cost? Well sure, NZ his hella expensive - and we knew this when we made the decision to come here in 2008, and the decision to return in 2019 following a four-year respite to the the Fatherland, or Motherland, or whatever we American ex-pats call where we came from.
But there are other ways to measure cost: What have we lost? What have we gained? Do I (we) even have a home anymore? I struggle with this when not hyper-focused on my work, my family, or what is for dinner today. We returned to the Pacific Northwest for 6 weeks from late Nov to early Jan - and while it was wonderful and life-affirming to see family and friends, we left knowing it is not our place, anymore.
While we did manage to purchase a home here, the interloper feelings persist. We'll become NZ citizens this year, with a 2nd passport to prove it. Move over, Jason Bourne. I am going to embrace it because, through all the trials (and there have been a few), WE'RE STILL HERE. My psyche is a mixture of apathy & optimism. Am looking after myself better - less booz, more tea, lots of water. But do want to get the new Popeye's in Lower Hutt, because, fried chicken is always a good elixir. And I maintain my commitment to writing - for nobody but myself. What else I gonna do?
Kiwiduck, wasting away from (near) the bottom of the world.
Hi Brad! Congrats, Jason Bourne!! What expat wouldn't want that power, and that wallet of passports?? He's a fantasy expat hero of mine from way back. To be so utterly blank & homeless you can land in any city anywhere (OK, Europe) and kick total ass. I think the citizenship ceremony is lovely. The one I went to in Carterton (not mine, alas) they gave everyone a potted native plant. I forget which one. That's a gift to look forward to!
I'm curious to hear more about home felt this time around. Funny how things shift, and don't. Wherever you go, right? That process by which a place feels 'ours.' I wish it were simple, like a light switch. I, too, struggle when I stop and look down.
But wherever you go...Popeye's is still damn good. I hope? Sometimes even fast food doesn't travel. Take care of yourself over there. Come to the workshop! Will holler when I'm over the hill. We're not wasting away! We're living! We're just a little pixelated sometimes!
WSJ hedcut is a major life achievement. But those newly arrived Austinites told me our mutual friend has a breakfast taco order NAMED AFTER HER at Mis Madres. AT MIS MADRES. Can you think of a bigger life accomplishment? I can only go home in shame
Oh, my. That IS an honor!!
WHAT
WHICH ONE??
That's tombstone quality right there
I'm a wherever, place won't fix you because you will always be there with you. I've moved more times than I can count, lived in every possible type of living situation and nothing did the trick. change has to come from within - I very firmly believe this.
And, I relate so much to what you say about moving abroad - you'll always be in between places, perhaps not quite at home (yet) at the new place and never again at home at the place you left. I'll always be someone who moved to NZ, wasn't born here. And I'll always be someone who left Belgium, doesn't quite understand what it's like up there anymore.
Thanks for this, Sophie! Working on that change within, for sure. Sometimes I know NZ is hleping with that, other times it's just me doing the lifting. 'Someone who moved, someone who left.' Nodding. We are defined by our verbs, no? Would be nice to be a noun someday. But better the movement and change, no?
Really lovely essay. You are so right that there have always been “lost souls” in the expat community. We lived in several countries and there are always a few expats who seem to be running away from something as much as towards it. Some people deliberately cut their roots.
Thanks, Kelly! Nice to hear from a fellow traveler. If you've lived out and about, you've know 'em. Sometimes you can tell without even asking that there was something back there they needed to cut off. That's fine, that's life. You just wish everyone a 'moving to' in their lives, I guess. And to find our own.
I immediately internalize this: Okay. Who am I?
I am not surprised, as this seems to be my stake in life, to me I’m both.
Fixie and Wherver. The unshakable burden of seeing both side of everything.
Yeah definitely both! And a lovely burden, too. You're a solver, Jessie. Always admired that about you. Hope Portugal is both a solution & just life, all at once.
Exactly. It’s just another wild chapter of our lives (#1) which happened to also solve the riddle of burnout (#2).
What comes after burn out? Depends on how much fuel you throw on the fire. 🤷♀️
Ooooh I dig that! BURN IT ALL DOWN. You can't be burned out if you're the one doing the burning...but yeah, what do you do with all these ashes??
That Elizabeth Bishop poem turned up in an autobiography by Spencer Reece - "The Secret Gospel of Mark.".
Didn't know this, thanks! It's a classic, for sure. I need to read me some Reece!