What a Week That Was

It's been a pretty stellar, if exhausting week. And as I mentioned in my last post, good in a lot of future-oriented directions, along with some good time to reflect on the past year or so. Musings on all this stuff after the jump!

The major haps of the week involved a trip to Chicago. I've been home far less this year than in my earlier years in Boston - deliberately so, knowing this was strongly likely to be my last year here. Especially given the fall's scattered geography, taking me out of town more than every other weekend to attend weddings, conferences, festivals, etc., I have been doing my best to be here when I can, and this semester have tried to limit my travels. (Well, once a month is... less than I have been traveling, anyhow)

And actually, it's been really great to rediscover how good it feels to have a home, to have a nest that's comfortable and familiar and warm - to have thinned out my possessions so that what remains feels thoughtful and deliberate and, well, cozy. That, along with my good luck in finding a neighborhood in Boston that makes me really happy, has made it a solidly good year. And boy do I feel lucky to have had it...

I didn't want to come back this year, frankly. I'd started working on my application for my fellowship in December 2015 under the assumption that it would be in service of making a dual-income, shared-life existence far kinder to my partner, hoping that it would relieve financial pressures and make it easier to fully and freely enjoy the city together before we moved to L.A. I finished the application in a daze of panic while that relationship fell apart, and by the time I found out that I'd gotten the grant, all the reasons I had applied for it had gone away. It was a weird thing, having worked hard for something that I thought I no longer wanted. But I also knew that it was an honor and an opportunity, and that refusing it would in a big way be signaling an end to my career path, which had already taken a lot of damage in those transitional months. So I decided to stick it out for one more year.

I feel like most of my biggest life decisions are huge in ways that I don't understand/appreciate at the time that I make them, and this was absolutely the same. Had I gone back to Chicago to write my dissertation, I think Boston would have been a scar, a kind of emotional blind spot and a deeply unhappy place in my memory. I would have been on the run from things - which is not generally how I like to live my life. Now, almost a year after making the decision to return, that history hasn't vanished, but it's layered - heyyyy palimpsested, semicoloned - with new experiences, history, sense memory, awareness. Getting to know and love a neighborhood packed with creative people and local-economy energy, without a heavy a student population treating it disposably; having a dedicated office space to devote to my work; meeting/dating/befriending new people; getting involved in social and work environments outside of my grad program... There was just a lot to love about this year, for all the complications and frustrations that will always crop up with any given city's flaws.

All that has been great, meaningful, and gratitude-generating. And still: being in Chicago for just less than a week to perform in a short play festival reminded me of all the reasons that I'm well-suited to that city on a number of intuitive, tempermental levels. The connective network that makes it easy to hop between neighborhoods; the gloriously reasonable cost of living; the degree to which most people seem to care, to be living inventively and thoughtfully in their businesses, their lives, their art, no matter what they're working at - these things obviously can be true to varying degrees in a lot of cities, but at a minimum I'm aware of them in a heightened way back home. And getting to play creatively and collaboratively was magnificent - a good reminder that collaboration is an enormous need of mine that needs to be fed for me to feel really connected and happy. Grad school can be pretty isolating work, and I have missed the regular chance to be a part of a team.

Of course, a huge reason that Chicago remains appealing is that I have a deep, rich network of friends there - people I love a lot, who made room to see me and help me talk through this moment of transition as they have the many transitions of the past few years. Stepping into a city that's the-same-but-different, reconnecting with friends who are growing-yet-familiar, I feel ready to see what a second chapter there will feel like. Not the same (you never step in the same river twice, as the fellow says) but with resonance and echoes of my past experiences there to help me discover what it, and I, want to be this time.

I had a few conversations in Chicago about job prospects, and while nothing is firmly ironed out (and some opportunities feel more in line with what I want to do long-term than others), there's a solid enough sense of possibility there that I know I'm headed back.

But first...

I'm a decent piece down the road with my dissertation; not halfway done, but with one chapter in and another on the way, nearing the halfway point of the meat of the thing. And I'd like to return to Chicago with as much of this under my belt as possible, so that full-time employment and theatre work can coexist with the finishing touches rather than jousting for space with more-exhausting first-draft writing. And so, having saved all year to cover a possibly-income-free summer in Boston, I'm planning instead to take one more sojourn to Europe, built (I think) around a trio of monthlong stays in cities whose structures and energies suit me best for balancing a rigorous writing schedule with daily relaxation, breathing, exploration. A kind of cultural tourism rather than frenetic sightseeing (though I'm hoping to sneak a little active travel in between each writing stop), it's a chance to really iron out the last pieces of this fragment of life, take advantage of the last-for-now window of geographic and scheduling flexibility, and hit the ground ready to focus on the immediate future when I return to the states.

So, at the end of April I'll be trucking my things into a storage unit somewhere in or near Chicago, flying back to close up the academic year here, and then zapping off on an $80 flight to London and off into the continent with a sense of mission, purpose, and openness that I couldn't have conceived a year ago. I'm really excited - and of course a little nervous - to see what these next two adventures will look like. But I feel like the past year and change has taught me a lot about accepting that we all live in a permanent state of change, that you can't control outcomes, and that mostly what you can do is strengthen the muscles of gratitude, openness, and curiosity as you keep finding new ways to exist, to connect, and to take joy where it can be found in the world.

OKAYYYYY if you made it this far you are probably my parents (Hi mom and dad! You're the best!) and even if not you deserve Treats for reading this far. So: here are photos of: a Swedish goat, my family dog, and Eilean Donan Castle. SEE IF YOU CAN GUESS WHICH IS WHICH, ENJOY.

CORRECT: This is probably a goat, though he's not staring at the camera creepily, which most goats are exceptionally skilled at doing. LITTLE KNOWN FACT: GOATS ARE MONSTERS AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Attentive readers will know this is a dog because goats are too creepy to let them cuddle with you. Also, it looks like Truman is cuddling but really it's just that he went deaf for a few weeks and took to arranging himself in positions where he would know for sure if anybody tried to leave the room without him noticing. He is a very good herding dog.

Did I ever explicitly mention how magical January 1 was, and how incredible it was to come across this place on such a clear day with only a handful of people up and about to see it? It was medium okay AT LEAST!

Malmö

A quick little glimpse of Malmö from last summer that I cut together yesterday. The town, across the sound from Copenhagen as you make your way to Stockholm, was a one-day-one-night stop for me, and it's in the news this week as right-wing nationalists in the States have decided to seize on its refugee population to scaremonger it into a reputation of being a Terrifying Hellscape. It's, uh, not.



I obviously know very little about Malmö, given the duration of my stay and the obvious fact that it takes time and work to understand any city of any size. But like most places in Europe, it felt (and, er, is, by most available metrics) exponentially safer than just about any place in America if only because it's much harder to get firearms there, though of course not impossible.

In the interest of not turning this blog into the Angriest Place Ever, I'm mostly trying to avoid getting into the weeds of the vile, mendacious behavior of the GOP and right-wing media in the age of Trump. But since this week's propagandistic fraudulence touched on what I tend to write about here, thought it worth the detour to say: nope. Remember how eager these people are to lie to you to grab at power, and notice the people who instead, like whoever posted the signs at the end of the video, are willing to stand up for the dispossessed, the displaced, the discarded, who have nothing to offer but their frail humanity. Any party that held actual Christian ideals would be rushing the barricades to defend these people, regardless of their faith, even if they did pose a danger (as they do not).

Tomorrow, I'll probably have a bit of a lighter post up, reflecting on a generally-pretty-lovely, informative, future-clarifying week, but for now: enjoy scenic Malmö, and keep fighting for all the good that's worth defending in this complicated and thorny world!

Your Funny Paper

I sort of addressed this in a post way back when, but as I head toward spring break and what's likely to be a move this summer, I thought it might be good to gather my thoughts on money, travel, and personal belongings as a kind of milestone of how I've come to the more-mindful place I am today. Below the jump: boring writing about saving for travel, quality clothing, and other confusingly connected ramblings!
One of the central realities that made 2016 what it was (well, the summer/fun part of it, at least) was the discovery that living abroad for the summer would be cheaper than staying in the States. I know I've mentioned it here before; I think I keep bringing it up because at some level I've got a little of that good old Protestant Work Ethic Guilt, that I need to explain and justify having taken the trip that I took. But it also happens to be true! Zooming in a little more on how that funding worked, though, gets at how I've come to realize I budget most effectively... and what opportunities have opened up and continued to be possible as a result.

Briefly: my first month in Europe I was based out of Vienna. Surprised at the reasonable apartment rental prices, I decided to keep things very pared-back: a studio, with good location but nothing fancy. The point of being here was to do research and explore the city. By finding a place that was literally less than half my rent back in Boston, I was able to store away enough money to do some weekend trips to the still-cheap (though not as cheap as they legendarily once were) cities of Prague, Budapest, and Krakow. It's the most rudimentary of things, but I find it helpful to frame it in those terms: being thrifty in one area meant I had some financial room to enjoy another area. By being mindful about it when I could be flexible - not grabbing the first apartment I saw, not insisting on American-style amenities - I opened up the opportunity to do more elsewhere. This was doubly true when pattern-of-living stuff entered the picture. There's something delightful and novel about getting groceries at the market in Emilia-Romagna, Vienna, Berlin - for the cost of one counter-service meal out, you can stock up on seasonal, local ingredients and make your own Austrian/Italian/German meals for days. And that, too, expands the list of what you can do.

The same generally was true of the rest of the trip. If I could share an apartment with a friend, it made a few more excursions possible; staying with friends in the UK meant that I could afford the steep costs of Scandinavia. Making grocery-bought breakfasts of yogurt or fish-egg-paste-on-toast (not a fan, but you gotta try the local customs) meant that I could visit a restaurant that René Redzepi likes. (True: he actually sat next to me with his family! Geek out food fan moment.)

It's a general principle: wherever you can save money with a little time or thoughtfulness, do it, and you'll open up broad possibilities. My upcoming trip to London/Paris is made possible by a trove of airline points, and my AirBnB stays are made possible by a series of tutoring sessions, but it all moves quicker if I ignore the urge to grab a burger on the way home or order a pizza when I'm feeling tired. In the moment it's a pain, but usually once I've made my own meal, I'm just as happy and $15-20 richer, and over the span of a few weeks I'm well on my way to saving what I need for a trip whose memories matter a lot more than a generic Chipotle dinner would.

This summer, I may be heading abroad again for a couple of long-term city stays, depending on a few up-in-the-air factors mostly involving the timing and details of the next job and move back to Chicago; that in and of itself is a great motivation to save. Again, I've spent the year stockpiling cash to cover summer rent in Boston, which is enough for rent and living expenses abroad, but every time I cook for myself it's the cost of a budget airline flight or a dent into the price of a guided tour.
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This attention to when, where, and why I'm spending has recently spread into the realm of clothing for me. Over the past year or so I've gotten a little more attuned to style; a Marie Kondo cleanse of my possessions really made evident what "sparks joy" (to use her phrase) and thus clarified what I like to wear. (Her book, by the way, is a great read. It's a little froo-froo, but for every two goofy ideas there's one really transformative one, and on the whole the book is actually an argument toward mindfulness, gratitude, and awareness. I cannot overemphasize how good it is to center these things in your daily life. Her method seems simple, but read the book.)

That combined with my love for the rare non-snobby menswear blog Put This On, founded by NPR and Maximum Fun's Jesse Thorn. What I love about this blog: it's not about trends or chasing fads, and it's absolutely also not about sneering at people who don't own a $10,000 watch. (Yes, those are very much things you find when you go looking for men's style advice online, hooray for men on the internet.) Instead, it's about awareness of your own style, paying attention to what looks good on you and why, and being mindful of quality and longevity. The blog is also heavily invested in the value of thrift shopping. In short, they argue that how you dress sends signals to the world around you, and being mindful of that is not a bad thing.

Those two things met up with the work of Erik Loomis, one of my favorite political bloggers, whose writing as a historian focuses on labor practices, and who has recently written with great urgency about how offshoring and outsourcing has allowed the fashion industry to claim deniability for the slave-labor conditions under which most clothing is made. Where Put This On keyed me into why a $45 pair of shoes will likely not last, and generally won't look very good, Loomis's writing brought a moral dimension to the question, asking how exactly we think that a $45 shoe gets made.

The end result of all of this is that I'm in the midst of gradually rebuilding my wardrobe from its skeletal post-Kondo form, leaning on thrift stores and Ebay when possible, and saving my pennies to get quality pieces that have been made in humane ways. It's become a fun part of my travel: when I'm in the UK, I visit their amazing charity shops (where you can usually find menswear that hasn't been as worn out as it is in US thrift shops), and I'll occasionally visit high-quality makers of shoes, shirts, etc. I can rarely pick up new pieces - but again, if I'm thrifty where I can afford to be, it allows me to invest in areas like this. Sacrificing a little short-term convenience leads to long-term value.

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Obviously these systems aren't perfect. Sometimes I get home having worked through lunch and brain-dead-hungrily order Indian delivery when I have groceries in the fridge. Sometimes I order a pair of shoes because it's a crazy good deal and have to return them when I look at the reality of my budget for the month.

But this past year has really hammered home the value of tending thoughtfully to what I have, making it clear how far a little saving and thoughtfulness can take me. I'm hopeful that in the year to come, when I hope to be working with a bit more income and a bit more daily structure, I can keep these principles intact and find my way to keep exploring in a way that is financially savvy but experientially expansive.

Holiday Trip Strays: The Nice People

This summer I would occasionally post on Facebook about the people I'd met in a given day, noting the delightful life-slices I'd been lucky enough to hear about from all kinds of curious and delightful travel companions. I realized that I never did that for my winter trip, so after the jump, here are a few that linger.

My server at a restaurant on Skye, Canadian by birth but working at this Skye hotel/restaurant with her husband, the sommelier, as they both figured out what they wanted to do. She'd trained in museum studies and worked at the V&A in London (one of the greatest theatre ephemera collections is there - it's on my list for an upcoming trip!) but wanted to push herself to be a creator, and was on Skye continuing to experiment in metalworking and a jewelry-making business she ran. They'd gotten to celebrate New Year's Eve the night before, going out on the lawn with guests of the hotel and setting off fireworks, but on this sunny day all they wanted was for lunch service to end so they could get out into the all-too-rare sunlight.

The Australian couple from my cooking class in Barcelona, whose kids were grown and who take an annual vacation to Europe - a long trip and the only one they take, because the flight time is something like 24+ hours. She was a former dancer (now a ballet teacher), self-depricating about her cooking abilities, which her husband good-naturedly seconded (she'd managed to burn boiled eggs, something so hard to do that our instructor assumed she'd mis-translated what they were telling her). As has often been the case with the Aussies I've met on the road, they were friendly and generous and kind, chatting with me about their daughter (enrolling in one of the major Australian arts universities in a dance program), the impending inauguration in America, and their remaining travel plans. Full of life, a great inspiration.

The Dutch couple I met at my B&B in Skye, who turned up at the Talisker distillery and paid my way in when I wasn't looking. From a little village outside Groningen, they came to Scotland because it felt like the kind of landscape they're drawn to. At breakfast they'd cautiously asked me if Chicago really had the kind of violence they'd heard about, which led to a really thoughtful, complex conversation about gun control, racial segregation, and community policing. It was fun then to see the husband of the couple geeking out at the distillery, the first time he'd gone on a tour like that.

My AirBnB host was a funny, charismatic guy who mentioned the gallery that he works at; late in my stay I decided to drop by for a visit. We chatted about my stay, and about how much the city had surprised me; he told me that growing up in Argentina, he'd always heard great things about Barcelona from extended family who had moved there, and that when he moved he'd had sky-high expectations that still were exceeded. It turned out that the gallery he worked at belonged to his wife, an artist (I now own two of her prints). He laughed and said "There are two kinds of galleries. One is rich and one is crazy. This one is crazy." He then showed me a few pieces of hers that came from ideas he'd had - "Sometimes I make a piece, but she's so much better than I am that I usually give it to her because she'll make it better than I could."

All these people were thoughtful, generous, kind, inquisitive and friendly, and... I feel like we could all be them? Learn from them? WHATEVER THEY WERE NICE THE END