Out of America
The First Year
30 January 2022, 2:30 pm. A year ago at this time I was on a plane heading from San Francisco to Newark, where I would then board another plane bound for Lisbon. Tomorrow when I wake up I will have been in Portugal for a year. My first entire year living outside the United States. My first year in a non-English speaking culture. That flight was long, and as I am devastatingly scared of flying—rather excruciating. Much of the flight is now a blur, though I remember having to buy extra bags at SFO because of weight restrictions. I remember long waits moving through Newark and a man two rows behind me with a broken leg who coughed the whole distance between New Jersey and Portugal. I remember re-watching Ocean's 8 and The Heat to keep my mind off the fact that I was in a plane and convinced that at any moment it would burst into flames, sending us hurtling into the frigid waves of the Atlantic. As it turned out, we did not explode. Did not meet a watery death half-way across the ocean. Instead we arrived after thirty sleepless hours of travel, de-boarded the plane, and for the first time entered Europe through the EU passport and visa holders line, where passports were processed with a friendly Bem vindo!
31 January 2022, 2:00 pm. I did not remember the significance of this day until sitting down to lunch with a friend. We had run some errands in Tomar, the ancient bastion of the Knights Templar, and after erranding had wandered around Old Town, eventually taking a table on the terrace of Lusitana Love in the Praça da República. The day had started off just above freezing, and by lunch we had removed scarves, hats, jackets and were regretting being obliged to keep our fleece pull-overs on. In taking out my phone to photograph the Merenda (camembert and mushrooms baked in a ring of puff pastry) I saw the date and was amazed that overnight I had forgotten what 31 January now means to me.
So much has happened in this year—so many changes and challenges. So many successes and grievous failures. I am reminded every day how unpredictable life is. How non-linear. I am reminded that fear is a teacher and to learn we must choose to act from within a state of fear or we become stuck–—subject to entropy, or worse—rigidly timid. Many times I find myself dreading having to speak Portuguese—this difficult and beautiful language with its wily grammar and twenty verb conjugations. But speak it I must. Must give directions to delivery drivers, place orders and get fields plowed. Yesterday I had my weekly conversational lesson and the entire hour beforehand I was tense at the prospect of having to discuss the Portuguese government—a theme I myself had chosen—and the roles of all the various local and federal level agencies, assemblies and departments, as well as the results of this week's snap election following the dissolution of Parliament after the failure to pass a budget for 2022. Despite my apprehension, the hour went quickly, and while I stumbled here and there, I came away ever so slightly more confident.
Over this year I have been asked many times if I am homesick, or what I miss about the US. I grew up moving frequently, and after leaving home continued to move nearly every other year. I have never been homesick because I have never developed a sense of home. Home is where I and my notebooks happen to be. It is anywhere I spend any length of time longer than a week. I do, however, desperately miss French Roast coffee and green chili. I have had to become a drinker of americanos by necessity—I do not enjoy espresso, which is coffee in my adopted country. I do not miss the US or my life there. Do not miss the politics, violence, inequality or traffic. Do not miss the self-important airheads on cable news, or the people who revere them. I have moved from an obscenely wealthy nation to a poor one, albeit happier and more content—delighted with the simple pleasures of friends, family and meals shared together.
There is still much uncertainty about my future—the shape and direction life will take me–—and of course there is fear in that. Fear and—more crucially—curiosity. I am not big on planning unless absolutely essential (the immigration process, for example) since plans must often be abandoned due to circumstance. Circumstance, however, I can work with. My current circumstances, though a little tricky, present me with some fascinating opportunities—but that is another story.