Meet the Local: Accra, Ghana

Meet the Local is a series designed to uncover the differences (and similarities) in how we think and live in different parts of the world.  Over the upcoming months, I’ll ask locals from places all over the world the same set of getting-to-know-you questions.  This week, we travel to Ghana, where it's typical to have both a Christian name and a local name---so meet Jane, or Nana Ama Nyamekye.  She was born in Kumasi, and now lives in Accra, Ghana's capital, where she works at The Hunger Project, a NGO that focuses on empowering people to end their own hunger.  

What do you like about the place you live?

The people around are quite warm.  They show their communal spirits, and I communicate well with them.

What don’t you like so much?

The roads.  They are untarred, they are dusty.  When it rains, it becomes quite difficult to get anywhere, to even walk, because it’s muddy, and there are a lot of potholes so if someone is driving and someone passes by, you can get quite wet if the driver doesn’t avoid it.

What do you normally eat for breakfast?

I like local porridge, it’s made from millet and ginger and a little chili pepper.  We call it koose---it’s made from black eyed peas.  You can eat bread with it, but I feel like the bread is too heavy, so I mix it with the porridge.  Sometimes I have hot chocolate with it.

What do you do for a living?  How important is your job to your sense of self?

I’m into small scale banking, so to speak---I’m in micro finance.  I work with a NGO whose goals I really admire.  My job makes me feel fulfilled in that I grew up in an environment where people could be very intelligent but because they lacked the financial ability, they couldn’t reach whatever targets or goals they set for themselves.  My job looks at ensuring that people are economically self sufficient.  It aligns with myself, my personal feeling and hope for the world.  I expect people to be okay, I expect people to be looking out for a world that embraces people, that people will be given opportunities to make ends meet.  I believe that everybody has potential, and that, given the opportunity, they can meet the goals they set for themselves.  This job allows people to be uplifted.

What do you do for fun?

I like to be with kids---they’re adorable.  I like to admire their innocence.  But mostly, I unwind my day with a movie, or sometimes I end my day by listening to gospel preaching.

How often do you see your family?  Tell me what you did the last time you saw them.

The last time I saw my family was in the end of May, a little while ago, but I will see them this weekend.  With my cousins, they are a little older than me, but they are all involved in corporate institutions, so first I try to talk about how we can help women, and women in the workplace.  But sometimes we just talk about family.  Last time we met, they asked me to help plan my auntie’s birthday.

What’s your biggest dream for your life?

My dream is to be able to get a PhD, something that will be beneficial to other people. I want to do research, and maybe to lecture as time goes on, so that the experience that I’ve gathered can be combined with the academic world so that I can be efficient and effect change.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Why?

I always want to be in Ghana, because the people are warm, and because I have the chance to improve upon the systems.  I want to make it so most people can go to school, and then most people can give back to society, especially in the rural areas.  So yeah, I would want to be in Ghana.

 What are you most proud of?

I’m proud of being a change agent.  In my line of work, I work with people who want to take a step forward in their economic adventures.  I get so happy and proud when people tell me how their lives have changed from nothing to economic self-sufficiency.  I have more than a hundred women who had nothing, no savings, but have saved now amounting to more than 500 Ghana cedis (approximately $250 USD).  They’ve been able to send their children to school, some to the tertiary levels.  I get so happy when I realize that people are not always just sitting down folding their arms but they are always trying to work, to change their lives.

 How happy would you say you are?  Why?

I would say I’m happy, I’m fulfilled, even though I haven’t gotten to my limit yet.  There is always room for improvement.  I know that I’m working in a good team, and my team members are all working together to achieve the same goals.  In my home, there is peace---with my husband, everything is okay.  When I go to the field, I meet my women who embrace me with huge smiles because of the changes they’re seeing in their lives.

Check out previous answers from locals in Lisbon, Sarajevo, Sydney, and London.  Want to participate in Meet the Local or know someone who does?  Email liz@thingsthatmakeus.com for more details.

The Price of Fear

I first mentioned the lump to my boyfriend after it had been there for a month.  "I thought it was a pimple," I said.  "But it's not going away." "Go get it checked out," he said.  "We live in England, so why not?"  Why not, indeed?  In the four years since I graduated college, I'd spent more time than not uninsured.  I'd chosen the path of freelance work and enterprising startup jobs, which, while rewarding, came laden with different types of concerns then I'd ever been faced with before.  One Christmas, I stared at my pinky toe, which, after a run in with a table, had now grown to the size of an apricot.  Hospital visits were going to be several hundred dollars, at a minimum, I knew.  I decided that I could walk it off.   Another time, I fainted at a cafe, the back of my head absorbing the weight of my whole body on the concrete floor.  When my right pupil grew slightly but perceptibly larger than my left---a potential sign of a brain bleed, which can quickly turn fatal---I was told by my doctor friend that I needed an MRI, which would cost upwards of $1000.  I found myself playing the Russian roulette of What If games.  What if I spent over a grand that I didn't have and they found nothing?  What if I didn't spend that grand and it was something, and then I was nothing?  Eventually, fear won out and I got the MRI.  When they found nothing out of the ordinary on the scan, my relief was surpassed by anger, guilt, annoyance.

Now, though, I was in England, where the NHS ensures that all medical care is free.  Yes, you heard me---free doctors, free dentists, free prescription medications, free physical therapy, free surgeries, free outpatient care.  I scheduled an appointment with my primary care doctor, and I waited.  And I waited, and I waited and I waited some more.  Non-urgent cases are often given appointment weeks---if not months---out.  When I finally saw my doctor, he told me that his roll, essentially, was that of a gatekeeper.  "I think it's just a cyst," he said, "but that's just an opinion."  He couldn't diagnose my arm lump, but without him, I couldn't see a specialist.  "I've put into the system that you need an ultrasound," he said.

"Great." I nodded.  "When will I get that?"

"It's in the system," he repeated.  "You'll get a letter in the post once they book you an appointment."  Ah, the post.  The British are fond of the post, and use it almost exclusively for the scheduling of medical appointments.  Three to four weeks after you see your doctor, a letter arrives.  On it, is a single time on a single day.  Can't make it?  Only then can you call a hotline, where a slightly exasperated person (who are you, after all, to be too busy for their carefully arbitrarily scheduled appointments?) will offer you a different slot.  Maybe.  If there happens to be one open.

Six weeks after my initial doctor's appointment, I went to the hospital, where an ultrasound technician looked at my arm.  "This is definitely not a cyst," the man I'd never seen or met before said.

"What is it?"  My eyes were wide, fearful.  I would not cry in front of the businesslike ultrasound man.

He snapped his gloves off and shrugged.  "I don't know," he said.  "You've got to get it out.  I'll make an appointment for the surgery."  Seeing my wet cheeks---my attempts to hold back tears had clearly failed---he sighed.  "It's an in-office procedure," he said.  "It won't hurt."

He entered into the system and three weeks later, I got a slip of paper with my appointment time and not much else.  The appointment was still six weeks out, a month and a half I spent worrying over what the lump in my arm was and what the surgery entailed.  Did I have skin cancer?  Was I going to be under anesthesia?  Could I eat in the 24 hours before?  Would I have normal use of my arm immediately after?

The day of the procedure, I woke up early to make my way to the hospital across town.  I rode the elevator up to the sixth floor, and made my way to the dermatologist's office.  "Are we doing the procedure in here?" I asked, looking around.

"Procedure?"

"I didn't eat last night or this morning," I said.  "Just in case."

"Oh, honey.  This is just a consultation."

"But the ultrasound guy said---"

She shook her head.  "For this kind of thing, you don't even need an ultrasound.  Look: there are 350 dermatologists in the whole of the UK.  We're hard to get appointments with, so they like to put obstacles in the way."  She poked at my arm, and determined that it was, indeed, just a cyst.  "The ultrasound guys don't know what they're looking for," she said, and then: "Don't worry, we'll get this thing out of you."

The kind dermatologist walked me through what it will entail, finally filling in one of the many black holes that have surrounded this experience.  I haven't received my appointment yet for the final procedure, although I'm told it should be within the next four months, or approximately nine months from my initial appointment.

In the US, I likely could've had my cyst diagnosed and removed within a week, likely for a cost upwards of a thousand dollars.  In the UK, I'm receiving care free of financial worry but laden with every other kind: six months of not knowing what a strange lump in my arm was; months of back and forths to different doctors; a disconcerting lack of clarity from most parties; being at the beck and call of a scheduling system that likely hasn't seen any change in the last fifty years.

What is the value of fear?  What is the value of convenience?  I feel incredibly fortunate that I can even ask these questions; I realize the amount of people in the US who wouldn't have gotten the MRI ever, simply because the cost was completely prohibitive.  But as our health care system is changing in the US, I think these are questions worth considering.  While I remain in favor of free healthcare for all, I now know that free does, sometimes, come with it's own price.

A Guide to the Many, Many Markets of London

London loves markets.  More than any city I’ve been to, London has a market for everything: for food, for vintage clothes, for Sunday strolling, for flowers, for techno music for children (no, really).  They’re full of shouting British shopkeepers and one of a kind souvenirs, of puddings made of blood and maps from the 1600s, of fresh crepes and live guitar music.  They offer an experience of London at its finest and most distinctively London, but there are so many that it’s often hard to figure out where to begin.  This week, Zack and I are hosting our first visitor (hi, Matt!), for whom I’ve narrowed down the London market experience to its best and most diverse:

For anyone who likes to eat their way through the day: Borough Market, Borough Market, Borough Market.  A definitive London foodie experience, Borough Market has been operating in its present location by the Thames River for almost a thousand years (2016 will mark the thousandth anniversary).  You’ll find fresh baguettes driven over from France that day, pistachio kibbeh, pitchers of Pimm’s Cups, venison burgers, Spanish chorizo, fresh fudge, and all of the fruit and vegetables you could ever want.  Go hungry and sample your way through the stalls with a cocktail or cider in hand; if you commit to one of the more meal-like options, the grass in front of Southwark Cathedral makes a great place to settle.  Borough Market is open from 11 – 5 pm on Thursdays, 12 – 6 pm on Fridays, and 9 – 5 pm on Saturdays.

For people who have at least one plaid shirt in their closet, and maybe a pair of black rimmed glasses: Brick Lane has basically everything, from amazing live music to all types of prepared food to vintage bric-a-brac of all sorts.  Flip through a vintage record collection, slide on a fifteen-pound fake leather jacket, and grab yourself an Eton Mess (a jumble of the biggest, most glorious meringues you’ve ever seen, whipped cream and strawberries).  Pick up a CD of techno music designed specifically for children, and then make your way through the Indian restaurants, where proprietors will shout as you walk by to lure you into their establishments.  While you’re there, pop into Sunday UpMarket (with more established shops, as well as many design stalls and amazing Tui Na massage) or the Old Truman Brewery Vintage Clothing Market, the name of which says it all.

For those with green thumbs, or craving a slice Dickensian London:  You’ll hear the scene on Columbia Road before you see it.  Thick British accents are shouting through the air: “Every-fing for a fiver!  Don’t trust the other fellow – you want leaves that are dead already, go over there.  You want brilliant, bloomin’ blossoms?  You know where to go!”  Even if you don’t want to buy anything, the flower market is worth a trip for the characters that fill it, and for the feeling that you’ve somehow stepped a century back in time.  Columbia Road itself is worth a peek too---it’s filled with charming old map stores, little vintage shops, and more than one saliva inducing bake shop.  The flower market is every Sunday from 8 am till 3---come toward the end if you’re looking to buy as the prices drop.  On a sunny day, there’ll be live music as well.

For lovers of antiques and/or Hugh Grant:  Perhaps the best-known market in London, Portobello Road has been featured in many a movie, including the aptly named Notting Hill.  While the street is winding and picturesque any day (even if the said hill is more like a light slope), Saturday finds vintage dealers from all over the country pulling out their wares: I’ve seen boxing gear from the 1930s, pocket watches from the 1700s, a collection of bells from the sixteenth century.

For people who want what’s cool before the cool thing even knows it’s cool: Brixton is currently in the middle of a (wanted or not) gentrification, and its market is no exception.  Tiny, trendy restaurants featuring all that is free-range, organic and innovative mix with shops halal meats and Reggae CDs, wigs and exotic spices.  With far fewer tourists than other markets, Brixton is worth a stop on any day of the week, although Saturday brings a rotating flea, craft or baker’s market, and Sunday a more traditional farmer’s market.

Because punk will live forever:  Famous and famously funky, Camden Market is the place to go for the most comfortable possible version of an alternative scene.  Fight your way through the tourist oriented stalls selling Union Jack flags and screen printed T-shirts and you’ll find one of the most renowned Goth stores in town, vintage furniture worthy of a movie (one of the stalls, in fact, is owned by a studio set designer), and plenty of people inconspicuously selling cannabis of all kinds.  Grab a liquid nitrogen ice cream (the lychee rose with cardamom pistachio topping is to die for), or pop into my favorite teashop in London, Yum Chaa – I recommend the Om Tea, a white-nutmeg-blackberry blend.

This, of course, is just a sampling of my favorites---I could go on for days, including Spitalfields Market, Angel Market, Greenwich Market, Piccadilly Market and more.  Have you had a chance to explore the many markets of London?  What’s your favorite?

Meet the Local: Sydney, Australia

Meet the Local is a series designed to uncover the differences (and similarities) in how we think and live in different parts of the world.  Over the upcoming months, I’ll ask locals from places all over the world the same set of getting-to-know-you questions.  This week, we meet Ben, a hometown enthusiast who has figured out the key to his happiness.

What do you like about the place you live?

A million things.  Sydney is a terrific place.  It’s a very active place mainly because we have such a great climate, even in the winters.  You can always get out and about and be in the sun.  And there’s just tons to do---the bush isn’t far away, and the whole coastline is beach beach beach beach . . . It’s a really active lifestyle.  There are a ton of musical festivals every summer, there are pop up bars left right and center.  I quite like that Sydney is geographically quite disparate as well.  There are little valleys and basins and beachy areas that have different sorts of people so it’s not one flat lump; it’s a really interesting sort of tapestry.

What don’t you like so much?

A current gripe of mine is that Sydney and Australia as a whole is a very, very big nanny state.  There are rules and guidelines for everything.  As an example, I contribute so much money to the council coffers in the form of parking fines and speeding fines---it’s just silly little things.  They’re trying to make you behave a certain way---and it’s a terrific standard of living, don’t get me wrong---but you have to play within the rules.  It gets a bit stifling, a bit claustrophobic.  If you’re not of that mindset, if you’ve experienced different things, if you’ve been to third world countries, you just find it a little annoying.  It feels intensely civilized---a little too civilized, personally, for me.

What do you normally eat for breakfast?

Two pieces of toast with butter on them, and Earl Grey tea.  It used to be coffee, but I’m trying to stick to one coffee per day and I need to get over that 3 PM wall, so that’s my coffee time.

What do you do for a living?  How important is your job to your sense of self?

I’m called a Community Manager.  I work for a company called Yelp, and as a Community Manager for Yelp I do a couple of things.  I throw parties, I teach people to use the website, I write a newsletter that goes out every week (I particularly enjoy writing, so that part is really appealing to me).  They often refer to it as the unofficial mayor of the city.  You know the places that are opening, you get asked so many times: where’s the best place for tourists, or for dates, or to enjoy a summer’s day, or for a bush walk?

My job is very important to my sense of self.  I used to work in advertising agencies in the corporate world and then I got to the point where I was making ads for a living and I did everything I could outside my work life to avoid ads---I just hated them---so there was that weird disconnect there.  It was really good money, but everyone was polluted, was whinging about not having a life, and working too hard.  It was the same sort of record on repeat.  I’m a natural optimist but I heard myself getting into this really negative mindset.  So I quit my job and was looking for something else, and then Yelp came along.  I really like the idea of setting my own schedule, and try new ideas.  Being able to have that freedom is really nice.  It has a real people power, which is what I was looking for after the corporate world with everyone just chasing money.  There was a lot of talk among my friends at the time going back to when you’re young, when you have to go to school and get good grades.  Why?  To get into university.  And then you have to do well at university---why?  To get a good job.  And then you have to get a good job---why?  To earn money.  And then you’ve got to get promotions---why?  To earn more money.  Money is just the root of all evil.  What we’re doing at the moment, it’s not the antithesis of that, but it’s more about community, being hyper local.

What do you do for fun?

I like being in nature, so I play a ton of sport. Swim and surf and beaches are so close that every weekend I go for a swim.  I really like music; I go to a lot of music festivals.  I read a lot.  I really enjoy writing.

How often do you see your family?  Tell me what you did the last time you saw them.

I’m trying to buy an apartment in the city right now, which is shockingly difficult.  I think we’re the second most expensive city in the world right now to buy real estate – a half a million gets you nothing.  So I moved back home with my mum to try and save, otherwise it’s just an untenable position to be renting and trying to buy.  So I see my mum a lot.  My twin sister lives in Denver, and my brother lives in London, so we’re quite spread out, but we Skype at least once a week, maybe twice.  And we try to have at least one family holiday a year, where we all meet up in some destination.

 What’s your biggest dream for your life?

I want to keep traveling and I want to write, whether it’s for my own amusement or professionally.  Other than that, it’s fairly simple.  I don’t want to invest in properties or anything like that – I just want a house I can live in and a life in the sun, a family at some point down the track, definitely a dog – a pug – and that’s it.  That’s pretty much it.  And to live somewhere I can be in touch with nature.

 If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Why?

I really feel an affinity for second and third world countries, where the boundaries are a little bit looser and you can do more things.  You can go shoot a gun in the hills if you want, you can take a car and drive wherever you want, you can camp wherever you want, because the land is free – not everyone owns every single inch of land like they do here.  So somewhere like Mexico or Morocco would be incredible.

 What are you most proud of?

This might sound quite trite, but I’m quite proud of figuring out what makes me happy and adjusting my life to follow those lines.  I’ve figured out that the more simplistic life is, the easier it is to be happy.  If you have worries and stresses and bigger things to look after, you can’t focus and you can’t really get true happiness.  The people that have the least are the happiest.

 How happy would you say you are?  Why?

I’m a massive optimist, I can see the good in anything, so I think I’m probably a nine.  I was probably around a seven before.  The downside of being a natural optimist is that you tend to stay in situations longer than you should because you can always see the good in them, even if they’re crap.

The change happened over the course of a year.  I had a really shitty year a couple of years ago where my dad died.  He’d worked so hard to provide for the family and it was really, really sudden.  He was riding a motorbike in the Himalayas. He was a mild mannered accountant, and he went on this trip of a lifetime and didn’t come back.  That was when I sort of found myself at a crossroads, asking myself if the corporate life was right for me.  My dad was a self-made man, an immigrant from Pakistan.  He came here with nothing and built a whole life up and all of the sudden, things were taken away.  So it sort of gave me a bit of immediacy and made me value my time a bit more.  I realized you can work and be happy at the same time – so that was my epiphany.

Check out previous answers from locals in Lisbon, Sarajevo and London.  Want to participate in Meet the Local or know someone who does?  Email liz@thingsthatmakeus.com for more details.

A New Perspective

Once, I called my Dad from New York.  It was the middle of December, and I’d been living in the city for three months. “Dad,” I said.  “I woke up this morning feeling so bummed, and I don’t know why.”

“Mmm,” he said.  “SAD.”

“I know.” I nodded into the phone, and stuck my lower lip out further, as if he could see it.  “It is sad.  And I felt stupid cuz it was for no reason, but I thought I could call you because you’re my dad, so you have to care.”

“Well,” my dad said.  “That’s debatable, but I was talking about SAD.  Seasonal Affective Disorder.”

It was my first winter outside of California or Arizona; that is, it was my first winter.  I spent awhile half listening to my father explain Seasonal Affective Disorder, and then awhile Googling it.  Like most ailments I look up online, I had most of the symptoms:  oversleeping?  I never woke up before my alarm.  Social withdrawal?  Who in their right mind would brave the gusting wind and snow to meet up with friends?  Weight gain? Well, wasn’t that just my body’s way of trying to stay warm for winter?

Because it made me feel better to say that I had something, I bought a blue light lamp that sat on my desk.  Supposedly, this was supposed to mimic sun, making my poor, confused brain think I wasn’t spending much of my year in a climate mostly uninhabitable to humans, breathing in the breath of a thousand coworkers, only going outside during the pitch dark mornings and evenings during my commute.  Did my brain think I was on a sunny beach in the Caribbean?  I’m not sure.  Did having the bright blue light shining in my eyes make me feel like I was doing something to help myself?  Let’s go with yes, although not enough for me to forget it at the office when, that summer, I left the company.

Fast forward to the next winter.  This time, I was in London, at a latitude---God forbid---even further north than New York.  In London, I’d peek out my window and find that night had fallen at 3 pm.  In London, the snow was pretty the first day and freezing and slippery for the following forty-eight.  When people asked me if I was enjoying London, I would tell them that the grey cloud layer that lay over the city like a reverse blanket was making it awfully hard to go out and explore. I’m sure I’d like London, I’d say, if I felt like I could see it.

Within the past few weeks, though, something magical has happened.  Tentatively, the sun began showing its face, finally casting away the clouds to blatantly, brightly hog the bright blue sky.  People began spilling out of their houses to fill park benches; pubs began dragging heavy wooden tables onto sidewalks and streets and roofs and alleyways---anywhere, really, which qualifies as outside.  I went to the grocery store the other day and found it closed when I arrived.  “Sorry,” the manager mouthed, pointing to the sign he’d just hung in the window.  “We close at eight.”  Eight?  I looked at the time on my phone, then up at the perfectly sunny day, then down at my phone again.  Even the sun loves London in the summer, it seems; it refuses to pack it in and call it a night.

A new London began to emerge, and with it, a new me.  I was suddenly energized in the morning.  I was eager to strap on my shoes and wander down canals, discovering the new parks that pop up in every corner of this city.  I sat at outdoor cafes and laughed as my hair became dusted with a snow shower of falling flowers from a nearby cherry tree.  I watched the sun set from the top of Primrose hill, and looked past the green grass to the shining city below me, lit amber as the sun slid beyond the horizon at near nine at night, and I thought: so this is London.

SAD?  I don’t know about that.  But suddenly, I’m finding it much easier to be happy.

Meet the Local: Lisbon, Portugal

Meet the Local is a series designed to uncover the differences (and similarities) in how we think and live in different parts of the world.  Over the upcoming months, I’ll ask locals from places all over the world the same set of getting-to-know-you questions.  This week, we meet Jose, a former teacher who is making a new living in tourism after being laid off during the economic crisis.  

What do you like about the place you live?

I don’t really know how to explain…I just feel like it’s here, where I belong.  I lived in Spain for a few months, I lived in Romania for a few months, but I always feel the need to come back home.  I feel I have my family here, and I have everything here.  I really feel at home here.

What don’t you like so much?

The politicians.  Because they do all of this to our country.  The economic situation of Portugal, I think it’s their fault.  Because we work, we do all of the things we have to do, and they ruin everything.  I think this is very common in Europe, the politics are each time less credible, so the people don’t really trust anymore in politicians.  In Portugal, 40% of people don’t vote.  So the people who do vote don’t really represent anything, and the politicians can do whatever they want, because the people don’t care.

What do you normally eat for breakfast?

Three slices of bread with butter and chorizo.  Coffee with milk.

What do you do for a living?  How important is your job to your sense of self?

I was a teacher, teaching sports.  I really like to work with children.  It was nice, I was doing something different than other people, because I used to work in summer camps too so I was taking the way of teaching in summer camps inside the school.  So I was not teaching sports, I was teaching games, and I was trying to teach values with those games.  First I would read the story, then I would do a game, and then I would relate the game with the story and real life.  I went to a small village to teach, but I was not from there, so when the crisis started, the people who don’t have friends are the first to leave.  So they asked me to leave.  Now, I do tourism, I run a walking tour company.  I really like it, because I can stay in Lisbon where I like to live.  I meet a lot of people, so even though my friends are leaving to get jobs in other countries, I can make new friends.  Of course, it’s not the same thing, but it’s okay.

What do you do for fun?

I go out at night, I go to the cinema.  I like to climb, but I don’t climb anymore, since I started the tours.  Because most of my friends that climb, they do normal jobs so we don’t have the same schedule.  I also like to run with my father, my father and I run together.  And travel.

How often do you see your family?  Tell me what you did the last time you saw them.

I live with my father.  I see my mother one or two times a week, just to talk with her.  I see my sister when I see my mother – they don’t live together, but she’s always there.  My grandmother also lives with us.

What’s your biggest dream for your life?

Right now, I don’t have many dreams.  I just want to make sure the situation doesn’t get worse, or at least the tours keep running as they are now so I can at least have a stable life.  Some of my friends, they are really bad in their lives.  They were married and have children but are living back at home with their parents, or they have moved to other countries and don’t really like their jobs or the conditions that they live in and I don’t want that to happen to me.   So I don’t have a dream, I just don’t want to have a nightmare. But if I had a dream, I would want a small house with a small garden where I could sit in the plants.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Why?

Here.  When I was younger I always wanted a house with wheels---a mobile home---so I could travel, but I think if I had that now, I would always come here.

What are you most proud of?

Now, it’s the tours.  When I came on and my friend was running them, they were almost dead.  Nobody would trust them---if you asked someone about our tours, people would say, “don’t go!  It’s terrible!”  And now we’re the sixth most popular thing to do in Lisbon on TripAdvisor, and I’m really proud of that.

How happy would you say you are?  Why?

From 0 – 10, I would be a 6.  I think everything is going well in my life, but I would like to have more friends, and a girlfriend.  My friends left---but the girlfriend, well, I’m a bit shy.

Check out previous answers from a local in Sarajevo, and a local in London.  Want to participate in Meet the Local or know someone who does?  Email liz@thingsthatmakeus.com for more details.

New trip, new you? Travel and the opportunity for change

A paradox:  the thing that frightens me most in the world is flying.  The rumbling engines, buried somewhere in the gut of a monster whose insides I cannot see; the finality of the cabin door closing; the complete and total trust in two strangers in the pilot’s seat, not to mention the myriad more on the ground, making sure two planes don’t meet nose to nose at 500 miles per hour, making sure the runway is clear but not slick, the wings free of ice and the fuel tank full. The deceptively fluffy clouds and their turbulence filled interiors.  The 36,000 feet that separate me from the ground. And yet, my favorite place in the world is an airport.  Any airport will do, although some, of course, are better than others.  London’s Heathrow is a marvel.  San Francisco’s new terminal has free Google Chromebooks, an organic juice bar and a yoga room.  But it is not these things that make me love airports.  I’ve never known, in fact, what it is, knowing merely the likes that, while exemplary, fall short of explaining the love:  the antiseptic smell; the ten issues of Cosmo, all trumpeting sex tips in different languages; the permission to eat crappy food (because everyone, in an airport, gives themselves that permission).  I didn’t know where the love came from, though, until I was on a bus from Lisbon, in Portugal, to Seville, in Spain’s Andalucia.

“Zack,” I said to my boyfriend, who was nodding off in the seat next to me.  I poked him.  “Zack, I had an epiphany.”

He opened one eye.  “Yeah?”

I’d been thinking of the time we’d just spent in Lisbon, and the last time I’d been on a bus several days earlier, to Lisbon from Porto in the north.  As much as I enjoyed walking around the glowing white streets of Lisbon, sampling the tart cherry liquor and chocolate salami, the part where my head tingled, where my palms sweat slightly and I tapped my toes---that was earlier.  That was on the bus, and it was happening again.  To Zack, I said, “I don’t like traveling because of the places I go.  I like traveling because of the opportunity for change, because of the hope of transferring locales, of the possibility the unknown offers.   I like the places themselves, of course, but it’s more about the change---the possibility for it, and then, hopefully, the reality of it---that’s the part I love.”

I settled back into my seat, satisfied.  Airports, then, were the ultimate place of opportunity: hundreds and thousands of possibilities for changes, branching upward and outward into the endless sky from the terminal filled hub, in which I sat, and waited, and savored.

Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin (if there can be such a thing), writes that, “To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.”

While many people think of vacations as fulfilling the first element---what feels better, really, than laying on a beach with a cocktail in hand, or sampling gelatos on a stroll through Rome---I’ve always, without realizing, thought of it as accomplishing the last element: the atmosphere of growth.  Each place, with its different things to do, see, eat, smell, taste, hate, and love, offers the possibility of making me different, ever so slightly.  Each place offers me the opportunity to change---hopefully, to grow---as a person.

“Do you think that’s universally true?” Zack asked, having now awoken enough to engage.  “Does a trip to remote Africa offer the same potential for change as a cruise in the Bahamas?”

I pondered the question.  Do, as he asked, the trips of the “feeling good” variety provide the same atmosphere of growth that I so desired?  Did travel inherently offer opportunity for change, or is that potential limited to a certain kind of trip?

My best trips, the ones that I savor in memory for months and years after, are the ones that have been the hardest.  There were the two months I spent in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, where I burst into tears at least three chaotic, crowded border crossings, felt dirty constantly, and was 100% positive I was going to die at least five times (you may not want to trust my odds predictions).  I felt more changed at the end of it, but also simply more satisfied.  When I look back on it, the colors are brighter, the smells richer, the interactions more readily accessible in the banks of my mind (there is, of course, something else to be said for knowing, as with a place like Syria, that you went at a specific point in history; that it will be fundamentally changed should ever you return).

Does this mean that the trips that I primarily simply indulge in simple pleasures are less worthwhile?  I don’t think so.  There is something to be said for the change inspired by allowing yourself to just be, of acknowledging the value of pleasure, of saying, I have no where to go other than here, no one to indulge other than myself.  This kind of environment offers its own opportunity for change, for reflection, for growth---although sometimes, I think there is merit in not seeking growth at all.

And sometimes, it’s better to be in an airport: the great joy in being safe on the ground, and knowing that, soon enough, you’ll take flight.

Meet the Local: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Meet the Local is a series designed to uncover the differences (and similarities) in how we think and live in different parts of the world.  Over the upcoming months, I’ll ask locals from places all over the world the same set of getting-to-know-you questions.  This week, meet Neno, who was born in Sarajevo and has lived there ever since, including four years spent largely underground during the siege.

What do you like about the place you live?

I like, first of all, the people.  The people and the size of the city.  Sarajevo is a quite good city to live because it’s quite a small city---it’s only 400,000 people---so you know everyone.  It’s like one big family.  And also the history, the culture.  But mainly the people.  The people are very friendly in this city, so you can always count on someone helping you in the city.  I like that feeling.

 What don’t you like so much?

I don’t like politics in the city, and the politicians.  It’s affecting the every day life---we could have better public transport, we could have more investments, we could improve many things in this city.  But unfortunately we have a lot of bureaucracy.  We have three governments, and three presidents.  It’s a small country---only four million people---so to make one decision when you have three presidents. . . it’s quite impossible.  Nothing gets done.

What do you normally eat for breakfast?

I drink tea, or sometimes coffee.  Then scrambled eggs, with cheese.  No pies!  Because people think we are eating the pies for the breakfast.  The pies are more for the lunch or for the dinner.  People think we are eating pies every day, but it’s very, very heavy on your stomach.  It’s more like a fast food things.  I eat pies only maybe two times in a week.

What do you do for a living?  How important is your job to your sense of self?

I’m a student of political sciences and diplomacy and international relations, getting my masters.  I lead walking tours when I have free time from my studies.  I think I will stay in tourism.  I’m studying political sciences, so people always think I will be involved in political life but I think I like history, I like the political philosophy, but I don’t see myself in a political life.  I want to send a message from this city, this country.  I think we have more to offer than just the recent history.  That’s the reason I started doing walking tours.  Unfortunately, this country still has a reputation as a war torn country.  When you say Bosnia, the first image people have is the war in Bosnia, Sarajevo under siege, but I truly believe this country is a country with a long and rich history, friendly people---I think we have a lot to offer.

My job is very important to my sense of self.  It’s very difficult life in this country.  You know, I’m 27 years old and I’m still living with my parents.  But in some ways, I have freedom because I earn all of my money.  So for my self-confidence, it’s very important that I also earn something.  Most people live with their parents till they are married, because they are close with their family, but also because of the economy.  It’s a very high unemployment rate---43% at the moment.  So unfortunately people can’t afford to have their own flat.  And also Sarajevo is a very small city, so even if I rented a flat, I would go every day to my mother’s to eat something.  So at the moment, I think it’s better to stay with my family.

What do you do for fun?

I like to hike, when it’s sunny weather, in the [1984 Sarajevo Winter] Olympic mountains.  I also like photography---I like to walk around and take photos.  I like to bicycle---there’s one part of the city that has bicycle infrastructure, so I go there and I bicycle.  I also like bowling, so I go there with my friends for bowling very often.  I also like to read, and to travel.

How often do you see your family?  Tell me what you did the last time you saw them.

I live with my family.  We are very close, because I was here during the siege so we were always together then.  The sense of community in this country is very strong.  The people are close to each other; the neighbors are close to each other.  The siege made us closer, because we survived together the most horrible moments. I think the siege of the city affected people in a positive but also negative way.  I think that people in this country appreciate small things more.  Maybe like some other countries or the younger generations in this country, one small thing is nothing.  For example, I like to eat everything.  I’m not choosy, but I have a niece, and she was born after the war.  And we all have a Sunday lunch together and she is so picky---I don’t like that, I don’t like that---and I get so frustrated, like, you need to eat everything, because you don’t know the feeling of when you have nothing to eat at all.  I appreciate the food.  I try to enjoy small things.  But also the war had negative effects---like, I never celebrate New Year’s Eve on open squares.  I don’t like fireworks.  Whenever I hear fireworks, I get flashbacks, because it’s the same sound as the shells exploding.

What’s your biggest dream for your life?

To travel around the world.  Now, I’ve traveled almost all of Europe, except the UK and Ireland.  Personally, I think that’s the best spent money.  When you learn about other cultures, you start to appreciate more about your own culture, and your own life.  But after traveling, to again always return to this country.  No place like home, no place like home.  I experienced the worst things in this country, so why not stay?  I think this country deserves a better future with smart and educated people.  We will not have a bright future if all the smart and educated people leave the country.  So we need to stay, and we need to fight for the changes.

 If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Why?

I like Spain and Portugal.  The people are very similar to us here---they’re also very friendly, very open.  They also have not very good economy, like this country, but they’re like, let’s enjoy life!  Things will improve!  I can imagine myself living in Lisbon for one or two years, but like I told you, I then want to come back to Sarajevo.

What are you most proud of?

I’m proud of my family.  I’m proud of my mother, my father.  Because I think they directed me in a good way, they raised me to be a good guy.  My mother for me is like a big hero because I was with her during all of the wartime.  She was also working every single day, walking back and forth through the snipers, because she needed to do something, to occupy her mind, to not be in a basement all the time.  She was working not to lose her mind, and a little bit to keep her job position. She was working for free.  Sometimes she got paid in cigarettes.

How happy would you say you are?  Why?

I am very happy because I have a good family.  I have my mother, my father, my sister, my niece.  It’s a very small family, but we are very close to each other.  That’s my biggest happiness.  Also, I’m happy because I live in Sarajevo.

To read the answers of a local Londoner, click here to meet Carleen.

Meet the Local: London

Meet the Local is a new series, designed to uncover the differences (and similarities) in how we think and live in different parts of the world.  In the next few months, I'll be traveling to Zagreb, Sarajevo, Spain, Portugal, Ghana, Morocco, and Scandinavia.  In each place, I'll interview someone who lives locally (although they may have originally come from somewhere else, as you'll see in today's post; I find that to discount people who have immigrated is to deny a core part of a city's makeup, especially in places like London).  I'll ask the same set of questions everywhere.  This week, meet Carleen Macdermid, from London, England:

What do you like about the place you live?

First of all, I love that it’s London, because I’m Australian---I moved here about eleven years ago.  I love how central it is.  I walk everywhere nowadays. I almost never get in the Tube.  It’s a 40 minute walk home, but I’ll still walk, because you see so much more of London.  I’m right by the river.  I’m in the middle of everything.  I love it.

What don’t you like so much?

It’s made me harder as a person. Australians are notoriously chilled out and easy going.  I’ve not become more English because to an Australian it’s very important not to be English but I’ve definitely become a Londoner.  I’m hard.  People get in the way in the Tube.  I’m always in a hurry.  When I first moved here, I would see celebrities all the time and now I just see idiots that are in my way and I don’t like that about myself.

What do you normally eat for breakfast?

I almost never eat breakfast.  I’m terrible at it.  I’m fully aware that it’s the most important meal of the day but I so enjoy my sleep that breakfast gets sacrificed every morning and has done since I was about fourteen.

What do you do for a living?  How important is your career to your sense of self?

I currently don’t really do anything, because I’m in the process of being made redundant.  I did get kids into apprenticeships for four years, and I was a teacher for seven years, and now I’m on the cusp, so if anyone thinks I’ll be useful to them, they’re welcome to contact me.

I worked really hard over the last six months to get that balance back.  For a long time there, my work was absolutely everything, it took all my free time, it took all my focus, and I kind of think if you’re working with young people, that’s important. Now, I like the fact that my focus is more on myself.  A better social life, a better work/life balance.

What do you do for fun?

I was a drama teacher for years, and for a long time I didn’t do any of that at all.  Now, I do improv, I rehearse with groups, and I’m just in the process of trying to write, to attempt for the very first time, stand up comedy.

How often do you see your family?  Tell me what you did the last time you saw them.

I see them very rarely---they’re on the other side of the globe, so the last time I saw them was three and a half years ago, and I helped them pack up and move out of the house I was raised in and move to the other side of the country.  My sister and my niece get here in two weeks, and it’ll be the first time they’ve ever visited me over here.  After that, I’ll be redundant, so I’m going to pop home to see mum and dad, and it will be the first time in three and a half years.

What’s your biggest dream for your life?

To find something that really satisfies me.  I’ve always had jobs that I’ve enjoyed elements of, I liked working with young people, but I’ve never really had anything in my life where I’ve kinda sat there and gone: yeah, I do that, and I’m really happy about it and really proud of it.  So I’m determined to track that down, be it in my work or be it in something creative.  It’s out there, and I’m gonna find it before I get too old.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Why?

I would invent a magical place that was similar to London and had the lifestyle and the get up and go but had my parents a lot closer than 24 hours away by airplane, and had some of the warmth of Australia without turning into the awful, shabby parts of Spain where people go and conglomerate and do awful things.

What are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the fact that my job has always contributed to young people.  I spent my entire career in education and training and I can point to literally hundreds and thousands of kids that I’ve helped.  I’ve got young people now who are teachers like I was, and other young people that have really good professions because they did apprenticeships with me, and I’ll always have that to be proud of.

How happy would you say you are?  Why?

I’m gonna go with 85%.  Even at my most unhappy, I never manage to drop below about 65 or 70%, I’m just naturally an upbeat person, but I like the fact that I’m starting to do more for me for the first time in a long time.

The Work/Life Balance

Last weekend, I found myself at a bar with a German.  He was in London visiting his girlfriend, and because I’m always curious about how long-distance relationships work, and because I’m nosy, I asked how often they got to see each other.  Their answer?  In the five years they’d been dating, they’d never gone more than two weeks, despite having a sea and a country between them.  “How is that possible?”  I asked.  When my boyfriend and I were long distance for six months, we only saw each other once, during a week-long Christmas break where we both used up all of our vacation days.  “How much time do you get off?” The German waved his hand about.  “Oh, you know,” he said, his accented words lilting charmingly, “it is up to us, really. If we take less than five weeks, they get a bit mad, but other than that, it is up to us.”

I can’t relay the conversation after this point, so stupefied was I by the facts he was casually conveying.  Five weeks was their minimum.  The company got mad if he didn’t take it.  By contrast, not one person in the last company I worked for used up their two weeks of vacation a year.  We weren’t the anomaly---apparently, more than half of people don’t use up their vacation days allotted in a given year.  And the US has some of the lowest amount of annual leave in the Western world.

I remember when, as an adolescent, I flipped through an issue of Time at my doctor’s office (I had sadly outgrown my prime Highlights years, and Time was the only other cover without a cross section of lungs or a colon on it).  It wasn’t even an article, just a small blurb, and when I read it, my largest career aspiration was to somehow gain employment at Jamba Juice.   Somehow, though, the sentiment struck a chord, and it became a go-to group conversation topic for years to come:  when given the choice of more time off or more money, the majority of Europeans chose more time.  The majority of Americans chose more money.

Because of this, and because of some media-driven idea of the overworked, bustling American eating a muffin on the treadmill while reading three papers and frantically replying to emails on their phone, I expected England to be a welcome change of pace from the life I’d become accustomed to living in New York and San Francisco before.  At all of my jobs, I was expected to be on for approximately 24 hours a day, available to answer emails and take calls even in the late evening hours.  Why not? I remember many a boss saying.  You should love what you do.  Your work should be your passion; your work should be your life.

I remember, when I was moving to England, telling people how much I was looking forward to a more even work-life balance.  “The Europeans just get it,” I said to anyone who cared and a lot of people who didn’t.  “They care about their jobs, but they realize there’s a world outside of it.”  And then I got to England.  Everyone was on their cell phones, and expected to be available 24 hours a day.  Everyone was rushing to and from their offices; everyone was stressed out. While they had, on average, more time off than those in the US (three weeks to the US’s two), few people took it.

“What’s the deal?” I asked one of my friends, a PR executive in her late 20s.  I told her about my expectations, about the European work-life balance I’d idealized and coveted.

“It’s still there,” she said, “in mainland Europe.  Here, we’re more like the US.  If you want to be successful on a world playing field, you need to work like it.   If people in the US are working till 8 or 9, we can’t be competitive with them by leaving at 5.”

Studies suggest, however, that this is more the perception than the reality.  A recent New York Times article suggests that relaxing more, recuperating, sleeping, and allowing your brain its much-needed resting time, improves overall output, even when less hours are actually invested.   By not having it all be output, output, output, you allow your brain to regenerate, to become stimulated. You catalyze new ideas and forge new neural pathways.  It’s healthier for you, healthier for your company, and, to be frank, more fun.

Yet, this is easier said than done.  While the writer of the Times article is working with companies that have a start-up mentality, companies like Google and Apple with beanbag chairs and on site basketball courts, it’s much harder to tell your boss that you should take a longer lunch break, and maybe a nap time around three.  It’s harder to say, I’m leaving at five because my work will be better, and it’s harder to shuffle out amid the glares from your coworkers.  The attitude is prevalent enough that it permeates the self-employed---despite making my own schedule (or perhaps more so because of it), I feel guilty whenever I’m not at my computer, actively writing.   I feel like I’m missing out on some opportunity to do better, and to be better.  Better than what?  The norm?  The ever increasing standard?  Maybe.  Or maybe just myself.

It’s sad then, when my PR maven friend tells me proudly that the UK is moving in the direction of the US.  It’s sad when my friends brag about spending the night at the office, or how they’re so busy they forgot to eat.  It’s sad when Zack and I are talking about his summer vacation and he’s listing off projects and internships, ways to get ahead.  “What about a vacation?” I ask.  “What about a little rest?”

“No one else will be resting,” he says.  “If you don’t move forward, you’re left behind.”

This, of course, isn’t something that can be changed on an individual level.  It’s a wide-scale shift in psyche; a probe into our values and what makes us happy on an individual and societal level.  But for my part, at least, I’m going to try and go outside when the sun is shining.  I’m going to take walks in the morning before I check my email, and I’m not going to give people my contact information with an assured, “You can reach me anytime.”  I’m going to try, at least, to do my work and live my life, and I invite you to join me.  If we all stay behind together, maybe, eventually, we’ll all end up ahead.

Trippin' Out Before the Trip Begins

There is an axiom, said by Confucius or Carnival Cruise Lines:  the couple that travels together, stays together.  In the five years I’ve been dating Zack, we’ve been to Europe and South America, the California coast and Los Angeles, Boston and the British countryside.   We have not, thus far, killed each other.  We’ve made it through the Spanish siesta time where every restaurant closes at exactly the time your stomach begins grumbling. We’ve survived a white knuckled bus ride that careened around Ecuadorian cliffs, dropping us several thousand feet in elevation in approximately 10 minutes.  When we’re fighting on a damp British day, we can look back at our pictures from a beach in Columbia, me in a bikini, him with a sun burnt nose and beer in hand and say, oh yeah.  I remember when everything felt wonderful. This, though, is not a column about traveling with a significant other.  It’s not chock full of tips about how to make it a rewarding experience for both of you (be flexible about scheduling your days!  Take time to explore by yourself!  Take probiotics; a wildly pooping partner tends to dampen the romance!).  Today, I’d like to talk about what happens before the trip even begins.

I am a planner.  After booking a flight, I’ll spend hours perusing TripAdvisor, Google images, Lonely Planet and Rick Steves (whom I may or may not have a small crush on).  I’ll Wikipedia the history of my destination; I won’t book a hostel until I’ve cross-referenced it on at least three sites.  This is in stark contrast to my regular life, where I spend much of my time searching for lost keys or money, or solving the case of the missing shoe.

There is a school of thought that suggests most of the happiness gained from a trip comes from the act of planning it, rather than being on the trip itself.  A study of 1,530 Dutch adults showed that planning a vacation boosted happiness for 8 weeks prior, while after the vacation, happiness levels quickly returned to normal.  The pleasure, it suggests, come from the anticipation of the vacation more than the vacation itself.  This is me, to a T:  when I’m on-line, scouring for deals and reviews and background, the picture of the place that I’m going is coming into tighter, brighter focus.  Instead of any beach, it’s a white sand one with turquoise water and an unusually good donut stand; instead of any Old Town, it’s the one where I can still see the bullet holes in the stones from World War II.  The more I know, the more I can picture myself there, and the more excited I get.

Zack, on the other hand, likes to wing it.  We’re planning a trip to Portugal and southern Spain right now, and when we were trying to figure out what cities we wanted to include, his eyes glazed over somewhere between Lisbon and Lagos.  “If we spend more time in Lagos,” I said, “we’ll have more warm beachiness, but then we’ll have to cut out some time in Cordoba.”

He sighed.  “What’s good about Cordoba again?”

“Here.”  I turned the computer to face him, and began clicking through images I’d opened.  “I’ll show you.”

“Liz,” he said.  “I don’t want to see all of this.”

“Why not?” I asked.  “I’m not planning this trip on my own.”

Here is what the study does not address:  when your partner is unhappy, you will likely be unhappy.

“I don’t like doing this,” Zack said.  “Going through pictures, getting an idea in my head of what it’s going to be like.  The real thing will never be the same, better or worse.   Flooding yourself with the place before you go removes the newness you get to experience when you first arrive.”

I paused; I’d never thought of this.  Still, for me it was simple math:  given the choice of happiness for a few months prior to a trip and slightly less happiness in the week or so I was on it, I would always choose the former.  For Zack, the authenticity of the experience mattered more than the fantasy leading up to it.  No amount of happiness derived from planning could make up for marring the moment itself.

Most things travel related merely serve to magnify that which exists in normal day-to-day life; this is why traveling is a test of a relationship.  I tend to be a person who thrives in fantasy. I write books and hang out with characters that are only real to me all day; I’ve always been someone who will spend much of the time in the present dreaming wistfully of another time.  Zack is more grounded in reality: he’s constantly assessing the world as it is so that he can invent products that fit in with it.  The constraints when he’s making said products are grounded in the real world; is there an existing part for this element, or does he need to create one?  When the pieces are in place and he flicks the power switch, he can’t write a successful outcome; it needs to actually happen.

We haven’t entirely solved our problem. I take the lead on planning now, just as I clean the bathroom or he handles the laundry, both tasks the other despises.  Still, there’s a part of me that misses sharing those dreamy moments with him, and I have no doubt there’s a part of him that craves the surprise reveal of the picture falling into place in an instant.

Do you and your partner sync up in your approach to planning, or fantasy in life in general?  If not, how do you deal with it?

The Birthday Tradition

A few years ago, I invented something called The Birthday Tradition.  Despite my opinions on my birthday (namely, that it is the best holiday of the year; that I am allowed to be giddy for a week or so before and depressed for a week or so after; that “It’s my birthday!” is a respectable response to any question and/or comment directed at me in the time period listed above), I did not actually institute the Tradition on my birthday, but on my boyfriend, Zack’s.  I’d already moved to New York by then, and he was still living in San Francisco, finishing up a building project at his job before joining me.  I came back to San Francisco for the holidays and for his birthday.  Feeling mushy (booze, old friends and too many gingerbread men, aka crack, will do that to me), I began espousing my love for Zack. “He’s one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met,” I said, “but he also can talk about anything and everything, for hours, even if he’s just humoring me.  He looks super sexy when he’s rock climbing and has successfully taught me how to build IKEA furniture.  Kinda.”

“Well,” our friend Matt jumped in.  “If we’re doing that, I wanna say why I think Zack is awesome.”

“Me too,” said our friend Colette.  “You guys can’t get all the credit when he ends up crying.”

And the Birthday Tradition was born.

We do it every birthday, and every person is required to say their bit, even a friend’s new girlfriend or boyfriend who met the birthday person moments before.   There’s a lot to love about people, whether you’ve just met them or ate their crayons in kindergarten.  That’s the point of the Birthday Tradition:  we so often think the things we love about people, little or big, but rarely actually say them. Sometimes it’s nice, surrounded by loved ones, to be reminded of why the love is there.  It makes it that much more concrete, and that much harder to break.

We’ve done the Tradition for every birthday I’ve attended for the past three years.  I’ve said I loved a person’s brilliant sock collection, their offbeat sense of humor, their impeccable sense of self, their cooking and their party planning and their unfailing kindness and their loyalty and their karaoke skills.  Which is why I was so devastated when Zack told me, as his first birthday in London was rapidly approaching, that he thought we should skip the Tradition this year.

“But why?” I said, extending the final syllable, clutching my hands to my cheeks and sliding to the floor writhing as if a hot ball of fire were about to burst from my belly button.

“Most of the people coming out are friends from grad school,” he said.  “It’s kind of like asking your colleagues at work to say something.  I think it’ll be more awkward than fun.  Also, the British aren’t really mushy like that.”  (This is true: I’ve witnessed one marriage proposal in England.  It took place in a pub, and the matter of fact question was followed by fish and chips)

Begrudgingly, I accepted Zack’s wishes.  That night, though, as we readied ourselves to go out to the pub in which we would ring in his birthday, I was struck by regret.  Zack, of all people, needed the Birthday Tradition.  I brought in our roommate, and together the three of us, with our two cats as witnesses, did a mini Tradition.  It was the smallest the Tradition had ever been, but it was lovely.  Then we went to the pub and got drunk.

As the next day, Zack’s actual birthday, drew to a close, we ate cake at our flat, and watched as snowflakes the size of my nose slowly blanketed the world around our windows.

“It was a good birthday, right?” I said, snuggled up to Zack on the couch.

“It was,” he said.  We’d just talked to his parents in California, and his voice, like them, was far away.  A birthday is a time filled with love, but it’s often that kind of love that makes you miss the people you love the most.  I snuggled in closer, and squeezed him hard.

And then the email came.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ZACK, said the subject line, and in the email a single line of message, the word “Love” followed by the names of all of the New York friends we’d left behind.  He clicked open the attached Powerpoint and found, on the first page, the words, “Happy birthday, Zack!  We are so bummed that we can’t celebrate with you this year so the Birthday Tradition has gone digital.  We miss and love you, The Gang.”  Next to it was a not so flattering picture of Zack asleep with a pizza box on his belly.

Every page was made by one of our friends, and every page featured a heart felt message and several embarrassing photos, many taken years ago, reminders of how long the friendships had endured.  Our friend who is currently in Thailand even submitted his response, and a lump formed in my throat as Zack clicked through page after page of messages of love.  Zack, whom I’ve seen cry less times than I can count on one three fingered hand, blinked back shiny tears.

It is not the birthday of the Birthday Tradition, but nonetheless, I would like to say why I love it.  I love it because the more positives in the world, the better.  I love it because it makes me feel grateful for my friends, and reminds me that they are the buoys that so often keep me afloat.  I love it because it’s easy, and simple, and kind.  I love it because I love to see people blushing, and I love it because it’s fun to watch the newbies squirm.  Mostly, though, I love it because it could show, even from an ocean away, that the love was still there, steadfast and strong.

Needing the New

Growing up, whenever there was a school vacation (regardless of length), I felt compelled to be different upon my return.  A three-day weekend prompted me to scavenge the mall, seeking out a perfect GAP t-shirt that would make all of the other seventh graders drool with corporate envy.  A week over Easter meant a new haircut or an unhealthy amount of time spent laying in my pool, trying to cultivate the perfect golden brown skin-tone (I am half Irish; this is not easy).  Summer break?  I needed to travel to far-flung places to build my sophistication arsenal.  I needed an accent, or at least a fake one.  I needed to lose weight or gain muscle, to learn gymnastics or grow three inches.  I needed, on that first day of school, the look in my friends’ eyes that said, “you’re a better you.” The world we live in, of course, both helps in creating this need for change and makes achieving it all too easy.  A quick perusal of the magazines on newsstands right now showcases too many “new you!” headlines to count, whether it be how to lose 10 pounds fast or reverse aging or try a new hairstyle that will change your life; flipping open the same magazines reveals advertisements and articles geared towards becoming your best self, over and over and over again.

And now, the pinnacle of the makeover madness, the holiday designed to remind us, yet again, that we’re still striving; that we will, in fact, always be striving: New Year’s.  Stressed and strung out from too much family time and too delicious gingerbread men, bloated from the eleventh eggnog cocktail and bleary eyed from waking up to play Santa, we look at New Year’s and think, “yeah, that sounds good. I’ll resolve to be better.”  Because who couldn’t stand to be a little better?  And because, of course, the resolution is the easiest part.

My need for drastic change has subsided over the years.  I remember distinctly returning to the hometown I’d moved away from when I was thirteen.  I was now sixteen.  Since leaving, I’d spent a summer abroad in Germany.  I’d stopped wearing bell bottoms (so unfashionable!) and moved on to bootcut jeans.  My hair was longer and less frizzy, my skin was beginning to emerge from under its sea of zits.  I rang the doorbell of an old friend’s house and stood on her porch, trying to cock my hip out just so.  She opened the door.

“Liz!” she said, flinging her arms around me.

“Hey,” I said, my irrational teenage heart sinking.  “I thought you’d hardly recognize me.”

She pulled back and looked me up and down.  “Nope, I recognize you perfectly.” She caught the look in my eye and frowned.  “Why?” she said.  “Did you not want me to?”

“I just wanted to be, you know . . . different,” I mumbled.

She swooped me into her arms again.  “But I,” she said, “wanted to see Liz.”  While I was disappointed, she got exactly what she wanted.

The ten pounds, the red hair, the black, brown or green hair, the tan, the pale skin, the contacts, the new dress: all of it is to get you that much closer to a person you like, not change you in the eyes of anyone else.  My friend would’ve recognized me no matter what.  The question was if I had become the person I wanted to recognize.  If I had become a person I could like.

This New Year’s, I’m resolving to stay the course.  Like many people my age, I’m learning to love myself a little bit more every year, and any drastic left or right turns might impede that journey.  I resolve to enjoy exactly who I am right now, and exactly who I may be in a week, or a month, or a year.

Happy New Year’s to everyone.  May your night and all the subsequent ones be bright.

Facetime vs Real Face to Face

When I lived in the US, I would call my mom and dad while I was walking around New York.  “Okay,” I would say, when either answered the phone.  “I have roughly four and a half minutes to catch up before going underground on the subway.”  This was our main form of communication: in those four and a half minutes, we talked (quickly) about the highlight reel of our lives to the background music of ambulances wailing, cashiers expectantly demanding money from me, and various homeless people proffering marriage proposals (needless to say, I lived in a great neighborhood).  Peppering these primary conversations were the little moments when, despite Google and Facebook iPad apps and the myriad ways we can acquire information in the modern world, I just wanted parental input.  “How long can you keep leftovers in the fridge?” I’d ask my dad, staring at spaghetti that seemed to have self-generated a green and fuzzy pesto like topping (self-generating sauces: the food of the future!).  “What day is the cheapest to buy flights again?” I’d ask my mom, squinting at my computer screen.  While Bing may have had a more accurate answer, my mom’s was the most trusted one. Since moving to London, my parental conversations have moved to the land of Skype, a world where calls are announced by a strange symphony of beeps and dials; where faces pixelate in and out of the picture; where half the time spent talking to my parents, complete Skype neophytes, is spent saying, “Click the video button.  The one with the camera.  If you can’t see yourself, I can’t see you. Hold the camera higher – higher – dear Lord, please don’t show me your chest again.”

Several things have happened in the switch to Skype; the most perhaps obvious of which is that parents, surprise surprise, love seeing their children’s faces.  All conversations open and close with, “You’re looking so healthy!” and “What shirt are you wearing?” and “How did you cheeks get so pink?” and other variations of: keep on keepin’ on, my DNA-totin’ progeny.

Below the rosy skin and the same shirt I’m always wearing (come on, Mom!) there’s a different, more fundamental shift in the nature of the conversations.  We talk less often, certainly, but when we do, the conversation has an unprecedented level of focus.  You choose a time and date and make a plan, rather than a slapdash time filler.  You are, quite literally, staring into each other’s eyes (save for the moments when – and you know who are – you’re looking deeply into the eyes of yourself).  You’re freed from distraction, less the person on the other end catch a glimpse of what you’re doing and squawk, their annoyance transcending thousands of miles, “Are you doing something else?”

It makes for some of the most focused conversations I’ve ever had.  Conversations that quickly blow past the day-to-day trivialities that fill a quickie check in; conversations that move into the realm of history (personal and otherwise), of the world, of what you really mean when you tell this story or that one.  The truth is, after all, written all over your face.

On the flip side, the absence of those gap filling phone calls has had another effect entirely: once afraid, in any moment, to walk by myself, to wait for a bus by myself, to simply be, I am now forced to confront my boredom and live with the worlds both around me and coursing through my own mind.  At home, without my trusty text message parental net, I figure out on my own whether my leftovers will kill me, or if it’s reasonable to spend half my life savings on a flight to New York (hint: it’s not).  I get to spend more real time with both myself and my parents.

While it should be noted that it’s not real real time, as I’m gearing up for the holiday season (I’m writing this article eight hours into a plane ride, somewhere over the Great Lakes) I feel more connected to my parents than ever, despite being further, physically, than I’ve ever been.  And, as much as I’ve enjoyed the Picasso-esque, pixelated versions of their faces, I’m excited to see their real ones.

Traveling With Parents

When I was eighteen and spending several years backpacking through South America and Europe, having a parent come to visit meant two things: hot showers and all the food I could eat.  Having left to travel abroad straight from my parent’s house, I had little to no concept of what real world costs were:  should a loaf of bread cost one dollar or five?  Was twenty bucks a reasonable price for a bunk in a hostel with bed bugs (all the better to combat the loneliness with, my dear!) and moldy showers?  Was it worth it to buy the $100 train ticket, or was it a far better value to hitch rides for free? I combatted these questions by spending next to no money at all, so that, when my dad came to visit me in Italy, I’d lost five pounds and, although I’d been through the bulk of Eastern Europe, I’d been to zero museums, palaces, or any other cultural (read = costly) attractions.  My dad fed me.  He paid for hotels that had fluffy beds and towels (towels!).  When he left, he made sure I had a train ticket to my next destination, and a clean, safe hostel booked for when I arrived.  My mother, when she came to visit me in Greece several months later, did the exact same thing.  They weren’t my fellow travelers, merely versions of the same roles they filled back home.  The environment had changed, but the relationship had not.

I recently went back to Italy, with my mother this time.  The trip started as an act of parental grace:  I was lonely and sick of the constant drizzle of England, and she offered to take a trip with me to bolster my spirits.  After we met at the airport though, the roles shifted.  Now twenty-five, with years of not only traveling but life under my belt, I found myself figuring out train routes.  I scoured the internet for the best hotels for our purposes; I directed us to the thinnest, richest pizza in Naples.  The change in roles, though, was most evident on the trains, in the hotels, at the restaurant over the pizza:  that is, in the conversations we had.  No longer adult to child, we spoke about online dating, about Israel and Palestine, about sex and cholesterol and Renaissance art.  In short, we spoke about life.

This relationship transition can, of course, happen anywhere.  Often referenced when talking about traveling with a significant other, though, being in a foreign country tends to magnify relationships, showing their boons and their flaws and mostly their shape, as a whole, crystalized and highlighted in a way that’s impossible for either party to ignore. This was the longest amount of time I’ve spent alone with my mother since I was thirteen years old.  It was the most time we had to talk, to work through decisions, to deal with things going awry, and simply, just to be.  I found out more about who I am, who my mother is, and who we are together.  My mother is a woman who has a wicked sense of humor.  She’s a woman who snores, and who shares my (lack of) interest in the multitude of religious art that papers every Italian surface (As we walked under a giant Jesus in the Pitti Palace:  “Alright, alright.  We get it already!”).  She’s skilled at bringing smiles to the faces of strangers and equally skilled at devouring an entire pizza.

In your twenties, it’s hard to redefine your relationship with your parents, the people who wiped poop from your bare bum and taught you how to read and write.  And while everyone’s relationship ends up in a different place---I have one friend who goes prowling for hot guys with her mom, and another who can’t even disclose that she drinks---traveling can help figure out where to start.  And that’s worth more than any hot shower.

The Effects of a Storm, an Ocean Away

My landlord woke me up with a phone call on Monday morning. “Are your friends and family okay?” he asked. “I heard about everything on the news, and I was so worried.” It’s the first question off any of my new London friends’ tongues when they see me, and the first question of any stranger when I first tell them where I’m from. Is everyone okay? Is my old apartment okay? Is New York okay?

My answers are, in order, yes, yes and I don’t know. The first two are easy: almost everyone I know in New York lived mostly out of harm's way. A few of my friends have had to walk or bike to work; some have had to go without showers or use candles to light their way. My old apartment, nestled safely in Midtown, never even lost power or water. The last question is the worst and the hardest for me to answer, both because I have no information and because I hate that I have no information. I don’t know how New York is, because, while I identify as a New Yorker to everyone I meet in Europe, while I compare everything I encounter here ceaselessly to the world I knew and loved back there, while many of my friends and family are still in the place I consider home, I am not. I am in London.

I’m not jealous of those in New York, and it should be said plainly and clearly that I absolutely wish Sandy hadn’t hit the East Coast and Caribbean. I wish it was a repeat of last year in New York City, where we ventured out into Times Square in the middle of Hurricane Irene and took pictures in the typically overrun with tourists hub that was now deserted (I, of course, also wish Irene had never negatively impacted the areas outside of New York that bore the brunt of the storm). But there’s something to be said for the ache you feel when something happens to your home and you can’t be there. You want to stand up for it. You want to experience things with it, so it doesn’t have to go it alone. I don’t fool myself to think I know what New Yorkers are going through right now, but there’s a part of me that wishes I was there for it. New Yorkers, I believe, are at their best in the face of adversity, and I feel a pang in my chest when I read Facebook updates about candlelit sleepovers or charging parties or the Exodus like group walking over the Brooklyn Bridge together. I want to change things there---I want to help, desperately, beyond the Red Cross donations and options from afar---but that’s not the whole story. I want to be there because I feel it---the city, the people in it---would change me.

And while my heart goes out to everyone affected by the storm, New York will be okay, with or without me. And I will be okay, with or without it. But it’s moments like these you realize that it doesn’t take a hurricane to create ripples strong enough to be felt even across an ocean.

The Secret Downside to Travel

When I was in high school, I watched The Real World: Paris.  It was the four thousand eight hundredth season, and was called the most boring by many critics, cited as evidence the franchise was failing.  To me, though, The Real World: Paris represented who I wanted to be.  Look at those cool, college-age kids (not to be confused with people actually in college) gallivanting under the Arc de Triomphe!  If I were in France, surely I would be flirting with beautiful, accented men at clubs.  I would be eating baguettes in sexy heels, or meeting friends in quaint cafes with spindly tables and tiny coffee cups. When, four years later, I found myself in Paris, I was staying at a hostel on the outskirts of town, unable to afford the outrageously expensive rooms in the busier areas.  My roommates were not seven strangers, picked to live in a house, but rather a family of cockroaches, a cold shower and an Irishman named Stephen who was always drunk (although on further contemplation, the latter holds true to the MTV series).  I wandered around the streets during the day, expecting to be hit by the wonder Paris had long promised in my imagination.  And to be sure, it was beautiful---the Sacré-Cœur Basilica glowed shining white on the hills of Montmarte, while the Notre Dame crouched in its gothic glory on its lonely island in the Seine.  By myself, though, seeing the sites felt single processed: I saw it, and I was done.  There was no one to digest the experience with, to complain about the upwards trek to the church on the hill, or to share a crepe with on the banks of the river.  Most importantly, I was no different in Paris than I was back in the United States:  the simple change of location didn’t render me suddenly high-heeled.  It didn’t make accented men want to flirt with me and it didn’t make me suddenly enjoy coffee, in tiny cups or otherwise.  It was the first time I realized a change of location wasn’t enough to warrant a change of self, and the first time that the reality of a place didn’t live up to my fantasy.

Yet, I kept doing it.  Social media took what The Real World began with and elevated it exponentially: even my failed Paris adventure was documented in a series of photos artfully designed to portray the image of the trip I had before I took it.  When I was readying myself for my move to London, I found myself picturing weekend jaunts to Berlin and Rome, likely with a jaunty hat and a perfectly structured leather tote bag, perhaps embossed with my initials.  I pictured Zack and I strolling hand in hand through manicured English gardens.  When, in my imagination, it started to rain, we would laughingly duck into a quaint pub to nurse hot toddies while the droplets pattered against the ancient paned glass.  I pictured myself surrounded by groups of English-accented creative types, who would have immediately taken me into their circle and invited me out to inspiring, interesting events all over the city.  Needless to say, I have an overactive imagination.

When I came to London, I was lonely. It felt lame to disclose it even to my family and friends, to admit that this European city I was lucky enough to move to felt closed to me.  Zack, busy with the program that we moved out here for, had less time for strolling than I expected, leaving me with large chunks of time to fill on my own.  With no job and no friends, I spent a lot of time by myself.  There are so many hours that can be filled by browsing career websites, by Facebooking and reading blogs that, after a while, all seem like they say the same thing.  I walked around by myself a lot, although the ever-present rain rendered that, even, more difficult than my pub-filled fantasies had allowed for (there are only so many times one can duck into a pub a day).

It’s gotten better: I’ve found writing groups out here, I’ve started building my own company, and slowly but surely, my circle of friends has expanded.  But it’s not perfect. It’s not, unlike my Facebook or Instagram might suggest, a series of charmingly strange foods (prawn cocktail chips anyone?), beautiful parks, and friend-filled nights out.  It’s these things, yes, but it’s also the moments that I don’t document, the trip to the grocery store in the pouring rain, the night when, alone in the house, I spend far too much time talking to my cat.  And that’s okay.  It’s not that my life isn’t the real world---it’s that the real world isn’t real.  The good, the bad, the rained on, the postcard worthy---that’s the real real world, and that alone makes it better than anything a fantasy of television or social media could offer.

Why Do We Live Where We Live?

Growing up, I always felt trapped by my surroundings.  Why had my parents chosen to raise me in the dry, geriatric filled desert of Tucson, Arizona instead of Paris, where I would’ve learned charmingly French traits like bike riding with a baguette or tying a scarf in several hundred different ways?  Why had my dad moved us to the agricultural hub of California, rather than Manhattan, where I would’ve become street-wise and savvy, ready to take on the world with my fast-talking charm and quick wit? As I’ve come to a point in my life where I get to personally choose where I live, I place a high premium on the cities that drew me as a child.  I’ve now lived in Berlin, San Francisco, and New York, with my recent move to London adding to my tour of world cultural hubs.  I spend four times as much on rent than my father does.  I’ve become used to taking over an hour to get from one place to another, walking a block, hopping on two buses and subwaying to meet a friend out.  I have not, since I left my parent’s house, had a backyard to call my own.  I compete constantly:  for jobs, amongst the best and brightest from across the country and world; for seats on public transportation and in restaurants; for space on the sidewalk; for tickets, for roommates, for a drink at a bar.

After we’d been in London for two weeks, my boyfriend Zack seemed agitated.  We were grabbing dinner after spending the day working from home.  “What’s wrong?”  I asked.

“Nothing,” he said.  “It’s just---this is the exact same day we would’ve had in New York.  We woke up, ate the same thing as there, worked in the same way for the same amount of time, are eating dinner at a different version of the same restaurant.”

As he spoke, I realized how much I’d expected my life to feel somehow different in London, as I had when I moved to New York from San Francisco years before.  I tried to put my finger on what, exactly, I expected the change to be:  my lifestyle would be the same (same job, same boyfriend).  The streets I walked would be different but they would lead to the same types of places---the grungy bar I like to spend my Friday nights, the cheery, rickety-tabled brunch spots of my Sunday mornings.  Yet, I needed the change of place to have a palpable, tangible effect on my life.  Otherwise, what was all of the effort and time spent living in the cities of my choosing for?

I asked Zack why he thought New York was, well, New York.  If it simply was the same bars, the same restaurants, the same jobs and (much crappier) apartments, why did people from everywhere want to be there?

“I think,” he said, “it’s because everyone wants to be there. No one accidentally just ends up living in New York. Everyone is there by choice.  Everyone in New York, then, is there for a reason.  There aren’t many other places in the world you can say that about.”

“So the people create the place that creates the people,” I said.

He smiled and took a sip of his beer.  “Something like that.”

Taken that way, I think the childhood me wanted to be the kind of person she saw living in the big cities of the world.  She wanted me to be somewhere by choice, somewhere for a reason.  If I can’t supply any other reason as to why I’m here, the simple fact that I want to be is, for her, enough.

How much do you think place affects your daily lifestyle?  Do you think the New York, big city idea of everyone being there for a reason is true for more rural or suburban areas as well?  Are you choosing to be where you live, or are you there for other reasons?

Kicked Out of Our Flat the First Day? Jolly Good Times!

The flight from New York to London is exactly long enough to get enough sleep as to be considered a night’s worth, and exactly short enough that this should be considered a travesty. I arrived at 9 am London time, better known as 4 am New York time, approximately 6.5 hours after I settled into seat, secured my neck pillow, sleeping mask and blanket---my arsenal of “I’m sleeping---don’t screw with me” devices. Zack met me at the airport with a rose, my name hand drawn on his phone. We picked our cat up at customs, where she was, if not content, remarkably nonplussed for having just crossed the Atlantic in a vibrating steel underbelly. We hopped in a black cab, which, because of the wondrous feats of British designs, fit all of us and my three bags nicely. (Fun fact: due to fold up chairs in the backseat area where I was storing my luggage, they all also are capable of carrying five people. Take note, NYC taxis.) We arrived at the flat Zack had found for us after three weeks of searching: a cheery, sunny two bedroom we’d be sharing with a PhD student in Kensington, an area you’d probably recognize from the quintessential, I’m-in-England montage in many movies. The streets were curved and lined with leafy trees; the houses a stately white, encircled with small wrought iron fences. It was, in a word, lovely. It was, in two words, too easy.

It was noon when disaster struck. In New York, people were just waking up, stretching their arms to the sky and inhaling the scent of coffee and street cleaners and the wisp of autumn that had recently begun to show itself. In London, Zack received a phone call. “It’s the letting agent,” he whispered to me after answering his phone. Zack had been subletting from the PhD student for the past week he’d been staying at the flat while waiting for the letting agent to call him back so we could officially sign the lease. I nodded and tried to keep my eyes open as Zack’s went wide. “What do you mean cats aren’t allowed?” he said. “I explicitly asked. I was told the landlord was 100% fine with that.” I looked at him questioningly and he held his pointer finger up. “The landlord doesn’t like men either?” Zack said into the phone. “Well, that’s just creepy.”

We had, we were told, 36 hours to remove ourselves from the flat before the landlord returned from his vacation, a trip to Poland taken out of the same fondness for Slavic women that caused him to ban Zack and others of his gender from the building. In New York, I would’ve been settling in front of my computer to read my favorite blogs before starting work, a full pot of tea and maybe a cat by my side. In London, Zack sighed and rubbed his temples. “Looks like we’re going apartment hunting,” he said. We are a couple with a cat. In the world of expensive, competitive apartment shares, we are what is considered “highly undesirable.” Like dating, highly undesirable is often met with highly undesirable. Any flat that looked halfway decent didn’t want us, leaving us with the kind of flat who might fart at dinner before ditching you with the check, the kind of flat that’s really hoping to make enough money playing the lottery to move out of his mom’s basement someday.

And then, as fate would have it, we hit the jackpot. On our way back from seeing a flat the size of a New York closet (and most New Yorkers don’t have a closet, so do that math) we walked by a place Zack had checked out the week before. The landlord was sitting on the stoop smoking cigarettes. An affable Greek immigrant named Chris who’d been married to his plump, baklava-pushing wife for thirty-five years, Zack and Chris had stayed on the stoop chatting for hours last time he visited the apartment. “Come in, come in!” Chris said. “I’ll take you and your girlfriend on a tour of the whole building, show you all of the renovations I’ve been doing.” The top flat, the one Zack had been previously looking at, wasn’t finished being renovated yet, but he showed us the rest of the flats, which became progressively nicer as you went down in the building. The final one had floor to ceiling windows, a balcony, hardwood floors, granite countertops. “Here’s the thing,” Chris said. “I have to be honest with you. Since Zack came to look before, I’ve decided to sell the building. So I can give you a flat, but it must only be for 2 months, until I sell. But if you choose to stay---I can give you this apartment at a discount, and you can move in tomorrow.”

Zack and I looked at each other. In my tired brain, I tried to calculate how much of a discount we would need to be able to afford the apartment. “Can you do half off?” Zack said.

Chris laughed. “You drive a hard bargain.” He shook his head and then reached his hand out for Zack to shake. “Welcome to the building.” In New York, it was those few early morning hours where the city is still as much as it can be, the streets silent and houses dark and sighing with sleep. In London, the world was waking up.

On Living Close to Family

Without trying to, I’ve lived close to at least one side of my family for my whole life.  When I was choosing colleges, while I contemplated far flung schools with catalog-created fantasies (strolling through crumbling stone archways at Oxford, living in a Gothic Southern mansion at Duke), I ended up at Berkeley, the school where my dad had attended and continued to live less than two hours away from.

This meant that when I got the flu my sophomore spring, my dad hung up the phone after I called and showed up at my doorstep that afternoon, bearing cleaning supplies to take care of my sick-filled apartment and chicken noodle soup to heal by belly and soul.  When I moved to San Francisco after college, my dad was there to take me sailing and out to a nice dinner after I got rejected from job after job.  When an adverse reaction to medication caused me to faint and hit my head, my dad moved in with my roommates and I for three days, playing cards with me and watching my pupils for sign of a brain bleed.  An IKEA couch that needed assembling?  Moving from one apartment to another?  Help was only a phone call away.

I live on the East Coast now, and have been similarly spoiled to be close to my mom’s side of the family, who were born and raised in Brooklyn.  My aunt has become my go-to source for intellectual stimulation and emotional comfort, popping over from suburban Scarsdale to discuss men, politics, entertainment, and life over cheap Mediterranean food.  My mom, who fled the cold of New York for Atlanta, hops on the two-hour flight several times a year, to make sure I have enough culture in my life (Broadway plays are always a must-do on the weekend agenda) and color in my clothing (“it’s so much more flattering than all that black you wear, sweetie!”).

It snuck on me as the unconsidered yet blaringly obvious fact of my move to London:  this is the first time I will be living on my own, an ocean away from my family, my points of stability and unconditional love and comfort and constancy.  I’ll have my boyfriend---my partner in all of this---but the support and interactions that come with a romantic relationship differ so greatly from those offered by family.  Yet it makes me ponder something I’ve never before factored into my thoughts or decision making (sorry, Mom and Dad!):  the value of living close to family.  I’ve chosen the cities in which I’ve lived based on their worldliness, their amazing restaurants, their walkability, their job opportunities.  While the dynamics of family relationships have morphed as I've grown older (although having my dad show up with chicken soup when I'm sick will make my heart tingle even when I'm 50), the relationships themselves have been omnipresent.  Family, so consistently, blatantly there, has unintentionally slipped to the backburner for being there in physical form.

I don’t know where Zack and I are going to move when his graduate program ends in two years.  I don’t know how much at that point family will factor into our decisions after having experienced the other end---the being far after being so close.  Do you try to live near your family?  Or try to live far away, or not factor in it at all?  I’d love to hear your take.