When I was in the Navy and overseas in Asia for most of my enlistment, and committed the "crime" of getting to know people in the countries we were in and become friends with them (I actually was investigated for this because I might "compromise" my security clearance), I found most of those places far more interesting than what I knew "back home" (the last place, Vietnam, not so much). And then when I came home and went to school and was "admonished" by a couple hayshaking bigots I had for next-door neighbors in the dorm over being friends with the Hawaiian Japanese students who were a large contingent at the school, I was reminded how I have found the majority of Americans I have known since I started going out in the world to elementary school, and most particularly in the service, to be uninteresting ignoramuses best avoided. Still do. If a current project that may happen actually does, I am pretty sure I will take that nice large check and use it to end up in Provence, or Tuscany or maybe Portugal - I've heard good word about that place from friends who have moved there. I'm really sick of this place, and the best I expect if Biden wins in November is that I won't have to worry about going to jail. But everything about this country just gets worse. The out of control capitalism is likely never going to be reined in even a little (we're going to move to all electric everything when 80% of the country can't afford to buy a new EV?). Whatever it is that brought my ancestors here 300 years ago is long gone. Literally, for me. The last guy left of the Americans I have been privileged to know and write about in my books will be 103 next month.
Your penultimate sentence is fascinating to me. Not sure who would ever thought, say, in the 30s and 40s, that people would want to leave America to get more of a sense of opportunity and freedom and calm. It's overstated, obviously. How bad things are now; how good they were then. And going by one's "gut" isn't a great alternative either. Just thinking about leaving the only place you've known can keep you up nights. I am waiting, then, for the stores of ex-pays who write how they made the biggest mistake of their lives. I'm not finding any. You?
Barry, the problem is, as I see it, comes down to this. You go to a different country and experience the tourist version. I spent almost two months in Australia and New Zealand in 2000 and had a grand time. But once I came back home, all those people just peeled away, slowly, yes, but eventually. I still email one, on occasion. Same thing in the UK and Ireland. I almost did move to the UK after 9/11, but nothing really ever came of it. I have no contact with any of those people now. It's something that very few can pull off. I hope people come to their senses and realize just how fucked up we are and how dangerous Donny really is, so that we're not the 21st Century version of Victor Laszlo.
When my Apple Watch notifies me there’s a new article, I usually make note to read it later. This time when the title popped up, I grabbed my phone and sat down to read right now. Joan Didion is never wrong and I worry that things are fading away,too. But somehow, it’s good to know you’re here, down the street, could run into you at the bagel place (you wouldn’t know me, but still…). Home is home and misery loves company. 😊
I live in North Hollywood; I lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. That I'd rather live on the Upper East of Manhattan is one of the few things I know for certain
Yeah, I think about my adult kids, on the cusp of 30, with quite different but equally grim views of this our country. I'm too old to move away, make new friends and lose the very few I have left. I think wistfully about places like Scotland and Ireland, London even, where it seems idyllic and people speak English. But no, the hike up to the Observatory from our home is beautiful every day; Trader Joe's has the chocolate covered almonds I love. But have I the strength , at 81, to stay in the fight when a monstrous autocrat and his goons dismantle what's left of this shredded democracy . Yeats said it first and it's here again. The widening gyre.
It certainly cannot help the situation that, for many of us, we are the first generation in America that will not "do better" than our parents. And the future we see for our children is more bleak than that, absent some major change.
I agree. Back when we were kids -- and how old does this make us sound -- our parents' struggle didn't seem as suffocating. Or maybe they just kept it from us. Or maybe that post-WWII generation was just lucky. The rest of the world had to be
rebuilt. We had sock hops. Sure seems like there was more light in America back then, and it also seemed like it was those people pushing us forward who kept it bright, not the ones who harkened back to a mythical "greater" America.
During the George W Bush administration, I would have left the country if the decision had been only mine to make. My choice would have been England. The years that followed have not been good for England, so my choice would have been a mistake. Think of it! I was embarrassed by W! Now I'm here to stay, but I'm relieved I'm old.
When my dad moved to Canada in 1968, there was no "immigration fee." He just moved. It helped that he married my step-mom, obviously, but still. Also, his mother, my grandmother, was born in Leamington. I could, under the correct circumstances, move to Canada in a similar fashion. But, in turn, what would I be giving up? My townhome, which I rent, maybe my health insurance. Access to friends, places and other incidentals.
I still think your best 'move,' if it comes to it, would be to Oregon where your daughter lives. A lot less expensive and you'd have a cache of friends there already.
I think about it. My best friend moved to Portugal almost three years ago. No regrets. Although his youngest daughter, who's 23ish, has ghosted him. Won't return his calls or texts. He also left behind his older daughter and her growing family of two grandsons and counting. Which had to be tough. Point being, I have a place to go to and a friend to live with. To become a permanent resident requires learning the language, but that process takes a few years and a few intermediate steps. During that process your continued residency isn't guaranteed.
Reality for me is, I miss my family up north in Michigan, and that is where I plan to retire to in 2-3 years. And I'll go visit David in Caldas da Rainha. I found out you can spend up to three months straight as a visitor, then you have to leave for three months, so you don't have to apply for anything like a temporary visa.
When I was in the Navy and overseas in Asia for most of my enlistment, and committed the "crime" of getting to know people in the countries we were in and become friends with them (I actually was investigated for this because I might "compromise" my security clearance), I found most of those places far more interesting than what I knew "back home" (the last place, Vietnam, not so much). And then when I came home and went to school and was "admonished" by a couple hayshaking bigots I had for next-door neighbors in the dorm over being friends with the Hawaiian Japanese students who were a large contingent at the school, I was reminded how I have found the majority of Americans I have known since I started going out in the world to elementary school, and most particularly in the service, to be uninteresting ignoramuses best avoided. Still do. If a current project that may happen actually does, I am pretty sure I will take that nice large check and use it to end up in Provence, or Tuscany or maybe Portugal - I've heard good word about that place from friends who have moved there. I'm really sick of this place, and the best I expect if Biden wins in November is that I won't have to worry about going to jail. But everything about this country just gets worse. The out of control capitalism is likely never going to be reined in even a little (we're going to move to all electric everything when 80% of the country can't afford to buy a new EV?). Whatever it is that brought my ancestors here 300 years ago is long gone. Literally, for me. The last guy left of the Americans I have been privileged to know and write about in my books will be 103 next month.
Your penultimate sentence is fascinating to me. Not sure who would ever thought, say, in the 30s and 40s, that people would want to leave America to get more of a sense of opportunity and freedom and calm. It's overstated, obviously. How bad things are now; how good they were then. And going by one's "gut" isn't a great alternative either. Just thinking about leaving the only place you've known can keep you up nights. I am waiting, then, for the stores of ex-pays who write how they made the biggest mistake of their lives. I'm not finding any. You?
We know a few. Ecuador, Bolivia, Italy. No complaints. And they're definitely not gold plated insulated
Barry, the problem is, as I see it, comes down to this. You go to a different country and experience the tourist version. I spent almost two months in Australia and New Zealand in 2000 and had a grand time. But once I came back home, all those people just peeled away, slowly, yes, but eventually. I still email one, on occasion. Same thing in the UK and Ireland. I almost did move to the UK after 9/11, but nothing really ever came of it. I have no contact with any of those people now. It's something that very few can pull off. I hope people come to their senses and realize just how fucked up we are and how dangerous Donny really is, so that we're not the 21st Century version of Victor Laszlo.
True enough. But the adventure of it all and the evidence, so far anyway, that nobody I talk to who has done it regrets it.
Two who went to Ecuador and found Quito a bit too "elevated."
Toward the end, Ernest Hemingway had long ceased being an "American". Maybe he never had been at all.
When my Apple Watch notifies me there’s a new article, I usually make note to read it later. This time when the title popped up, I grabbed my phone and sat down to read right now. Joan Didion is never wrong and I worry that things are fading away,too. But somehow, it’s good to know you’re here, down the street, could run into you at the bagel place (you wouldn’t know me, but still…). Home is home and misery loves company. 😊
Thank you for this. That was very touching. And Didion usually gets it right, except when she consistently chose Southern California over Manhattan.
Anybody with a brain would do that. :-)
THIS is where we part company. Maybe Santa Monica over Flushing, but North Hollywood over Manhattan . . . puhlease
North Hollywood over anywhere. :-)
I live in North Hollywood; I lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. That I'd rather live on the Upper East of Manhattan is one of the few things I know for certain
To be fayah (fair), Didion chose SoCal for the stuff at the apex of hip when NYC wasn't.
And yeah, I imagine driving through Tulsa and looking for you at your bagel shop. Not so when I think of EU environs.
We can still split a brioche.
Never mind that - what's the bagel situation in Lisbon?
Adequate, to use your word about my pizza, but the croissants with little flakes of chocolate for under a Euro . . . outstanding.
Yeah, I think about my adult kids, on the cusp of 30, with quite different but equally grim views of this our country. I'm too old to move away, make new friends and lose the very few I have left. I think wistfully about places like Scotland and Ireland, London even, where it seems idyllic and people speak English. But no, the hike up to the Observatory from our home is beautiful every day; Trader Joe's has the chocolate covered almonds I love. But have I the strength , at 81, to stay in the fight when a monstrous autocrat and his goons dismantle what's left of this shredded democracy . Yeats said it first and it's here again. The widening gyre.
Reading this while watching the Jerry Springer-like shit show put on by the Senate Republicans is almost too much.
It certainly cannot help the situation that, for many of us, we are the first generation in America that will not "do better" than our parents. And the future we see for our children is more bleak than that, absent some major change.
I agree. Back when we were kids -- and how old does this make us sound -- our parents' struggle didn't seem as suffocating. Or maybe they just kept it from us. Or maybe that post-WWII generation was just lucky. The rest of the world had to be
rebuilt. We had sock hops. Sure seems like there was more light in America back then, and it also seemed like it was those people pushing us forward who kept it bright, not the ones who harkened back to a mythical "greater" America.
When the country you live in controls 68% of world GNP (as we did in the 50s) there are lots of things you can do others can't.
During the George W Bush administration, I would have left the country if the decision had been only mine to make. My choice would have been England. The years that followed have not been good for England, so my choice would have been a mistake. Think of it! I was embarrassed by W! Now I'm here to stay, but I'm relieved I'm old.
When my dad moved to Canada in 1968, there was no "immigration fee." He just moved. It helped that he married my step-mom, obviously, but still. Also, his mother, my grandmother, was born in Leamington. I could, under the correct circumstances, move to Canada in a similar fashion. But, in turn, what would I be giving up? My townhome, which I rent, maybe my health insurance. Access to friends, places and other incidentals.
I still think your best 'move,' if it comes to it, would be to Oregon where your daughter lives. A lot less expensive and you'd have a cache of friends there already.
I think about it. My best friend moved to Portugal almost three years ago. No regrets. Although his youngest daughter, who's 23ish, has ghosted him. Won't return his calls or texts. He also left behind his older daughter and her growing family of two grandsons and counting. Which had to be tough. Point being, I have a place to go to and a friend to live with. To become a permanent resident requires learning the language, but that process takes a few years and a few intermediate steps. During that process your continued residency isn't guaranteed.
Reality for me is, I miss my family up north in Michigan, and that is where I plan to retire to in 2-3 years. And I'll go visit David in Caldas da Rainha. I found out you can spend up to three months straight as a visitor, then you have to leave for three months, so you don't have to apply for anything like a temporary visa.
Right now, moving to Portugal is still in the "Wouldn't that be cool" stage. It may soon get to the "Holy Shit! You're filling out paperwork."