Life, Off the Clock

If you’re like me, your cell phone is your watch. Not only is it a vibrating anchor that keeps you moored to your whole life through SMS, email, conversations home to your family on your evening commute, etc., it also keeps you punctual (although really less so, if you’re me).

Sunrise on my Street

However, ever since I cancelled my service for this trip, my cell phone that I had planned on using as camera, pocket watch and alarm clock has stopped resolutely at January 1^st, 2012 12 a.m.  There are no instructions on how to manually change this anywhere. Once this problem emerged, JP and D promptly offered one of their spare watches for my use and I gratefully accepted it, changed out the batteries, and set the time.

The unfortunate part of this arrangement, however, is that I am just not accustomed to wearing a watch. I keep thinking it’s an elastic hair band and trying to put my hair back with it or else rearranging it in different positions while my hands rest on the keyboard. Or, just not wearing it at all.

For the past three days I’ve left the house having forgotten to put the watch on. Once I get to the tram stop and look to see when the next one should be pulling up, I realize that I’ve left the darned thing at home again next to Paulo Coelho’s Brida (in French) and a button that’s fallen off of my coat. Great!

Chocolates at Neuhaus by Bri Seeley

But really, it is kind of wonderful. Time is an idea, right? A human invention. So for however long I’m without a clock, it kind of doesn’t exist... There’s only: “it’s darker now,” “I’m hungry,” “I think I feel like heading home.” When Bri and I left to explore the center of old Brussels on Saturday night, we paced our evening entirely by how we were feeling. We didn’t worry about when the next train was coming, we simply sat down, rearranged our scarves and continued talking as we roamed from one location to the next. We took several unnecessary walks along the cobblestones that tried to trip us up by our high heels at every turn and took time to peer into shop windows, sample chocolate at Neuhaus, take pictures, fix our hair (which looked rather frightful after the wind we walked through to get there).

It also keeps you looking up. The time here isn’t (usually) on some flashing billboard on the side of the building. It’s usually on an old clock on a tower that’s shading some plaza. If you’re looking around, scanning the turrets or statuary in a particular area, you’ll probably run across one with its long arms pointing reliably at some Roman numerals. This way you can check back in – “ah, it’s 8:30” – and time briefly exists again.

It’s a departure from “real life” in this way. The way we’ve arranged everything in the “real world” leaves no room for meandering, so we have abide by a schedule. It’s a practical invention, but one that I’m not missing any more than I’m missing my morning coffee from McDonald’s.

Bri et Moi at the Grand Place (finally) by Bri Seeley

When we went out Saturday night, we took the metro into the center of town. As we went underground there was a light breeze and a mist in the air, but by the time that we had arrived at Gare Central, the rain has begun in earnest – not the noncommittal Seattle rain that drizzles in a fine mist, but a straight-down, puddle-splashing rain that beaded up on our coats and found its way down our collars. It was coupled with a rather violent wind that raked at all of our clothes – knocking off my hat and flipping Bri’s umbrella inside out (when we examine the damage later we’ll notice that all of its metal tines have bowed out and no longer close properly). We had to duck behind an old sandstone column and pause for a moment to wrap our scarves more tightly around ourselves, pull our skirts down to cover more of our tights and put on our gloves. In the downhill slope to the Grand Place, we lean into the wind and stuff our hands as deep into our pockets as we can. We can see the spire of the Town Hall in the center of Grand Place down below us, but we feel like we might have our clothes torn off us at any moment by the wind before we reach it and instead arrive naked in the city square.

And then, suddenly, we emerge from the meandering little alleys crammed with sidewalk tables and pedestrians and we are in the Grand Place city square and the wind has calmed and it’s stopped raining and after the work out of fighting to get there, we find we are warm again and we decide to take a walk down to the Mannekin Pis that is just three short blocks from Grand Place. All of the avenues are strung with lights and all of the shops are well-lit and blasting heat that floods out into the little streets and we can hear a salad of languages as we tromp towards our destination.

Manneken Pis by Bri Seeley

The Manneken Pis. It’s a two-foot tall bronze statue of a naked little boy peeing into a basin. It would be an otherwise vacant corner of the city, but the Mannekin Pis is the mascot of Brussels, and there’s a large crowd of tourists standing all around him taking pictures.

He’s charming, sure. And there are lots of little stories about his significance. One story goes that a two-year-old Duke’s troops were battling and in order to save their lord, the troops placed him in a basket and hung it from a tree in order to encourage their efforts and what did the Duke contribute? He peed on the offending troops who subsequently lost the battle. Or there’s a legend about a young boy named Julianske who happened to be spying on another foreign power that was laying siege to Brussels, which had held out for some time. The offensive troops planned to destroy the city with explosives at the city walls and little Julian urinated on the burning fuse and saved the city.

I like these stories, but it turns out that none of them are true. Rick Steve’s reports that the little kid was commissioned by the city as a symbol of Brussels’ irreverence and joie de vivre. Heads of state and various foreign powers make gifts of outfits for the statue that are changed with great aplomb; accompanied by music and sometimes beer that the little boy pees out and can be served to passersby. I don't know if I would have chosen a little boy peeing in order to illustrate my city, but at the same time, I feel reminded that Brussels is a city with an appreciable sense of humor.

Anyways, we saw him – hung out in the crowd briefly, snapped a picture and ducked in for some chocolate in the nearest open door. And then we made our way back for dinner. Not without some risks on our part. Bri is creeped out by human statues and there were a few of them on the path to the Manneken Pis and she bravely forged ahead even as they reached out to pinch the arm of an American toddler also in the flow of traffic.

Searching for Dinner by Bri Seeley

And in making a decision to dine here in the heart of Brussels it turns out that dinner itself is not nearly the event that finding a place to have dinner is. 

All along the Rue des Bouchers there are hosts that have the same role as carnival barkers. They try to stop you and talk up their menus, get you to take a table at their restaurant.

“Ducati. Lamborghini. Ferrari. Come with me, Ladies. I take you out in this,” they entreat us from their storefronts.

“Please, beautiful ladies. I have the best food here,” they point to their menus, “just ten Euros. We have the best mussels.”

“A massage after dinner,” one of them beckons.

It’s all flattery and seems far more Italian than Belgian to me – forward, not necessarily sincere, but certainly pleasurable. We spend almost an hour letting the aggressive and boisterous male hosts along the Rue de Bouchers invite us to take a table before we decide on a simple Italian restaurant and both order the Margherita pizza, which we tuck away neatly – one crisply crusted bite at a time.

Grand Place after Dinner

We have plans to go to a small bar renowned for its pear cider, but since we have no schedule and we’re having such a nice time, we decide to take another walk – running across many of the disappointed hosts whose venues we didn’t visit and we circle the square, watching tourists, seeing if we can pick out the other Americans in the crowd, listening to the wah-wah siren of some police car in the distance, we look at the ceilings of the lit rooms in each of the buildings around the square that we can see and evaluate their patterns before retreating into the heat of an old English style pub, Delirium.

In terms of getting a view of Belgium culture, Delirium fails. Everyone speaks English and a crowd of teenagers in the corner are loudly singing along to “Back in Black,” but the Pear cider does not disappoint and Bri and I spend the next few hours hashing out our lives, talking about travel, the books we want to write, love. The sort of conversation that rambles comfortably when no one has plans to be anywhere else and no time to get there.

Bri et Moi by Bri Seeley

One of my goals for 2012 is to adopt the attitude of “everything as it is.” Spend more time in the present, spend less time processing or projecting and just be here. Be in this moment without wondering what’s going on in the room I just left or the to do list growing on the desk at home. So far, one of the keys to this experience is life without a watch. Something that is easier here, but still something I can try on from time to time when I get home.

Turn off the clock, shut down the wireless and just have a moment. Just you and your journal, your friend, your lover. These are lessons from a life off the clock.

Le Déluge

Dusting off the French is a difficult and humbling process. Not only do I have to retrieve whatever’s left in the old noggin there, but I have to question if I ever really learned anything at all. I know the word for “stamps” used to be in my vocabulary – I can see my mother writing it in swoopy letters across the chalkboard in that fluorescent-lit classroom all those years ago. But it’s gone from me now. I ask JP and D questions constantly for things that should be simple: “what is the word for clothes?” You know, phrases that are important to know: “where are my clothes?”

I am tempted to take the advice of one of my friends: “Frenchwise, when in doubt, just point at random objects and say Voila!”

So when an exchange goes well, I feel as though a parade is being thrown in my honor. I lightly mount my bicycle for the ride home with “We are the Champions” sounding triumphantly in my head. I punch the sky as though I’m featured in a heroic montage and congratulate myself on a job well done.

I went to the little shopping center today to get my watch fixed and asked questions and received answers in French from the people I spoke to: “Where can I get my watch fixed?”, “no, I don’t know if the batteries are still good.” And they responded and I understood. I switched out the batteries in another watch and even though my favorite watch is still broken, I was in a resoundingly good mood the rest of the afternoon.

The thing is, the phrases that have stuck with me from French are not truly helpful. Here is one that is particularly frustrating:

There were two boys in my French class in high school who were particularly animated and particularly funny (especially in combination). Imagine the Muppets’ Statler and Waldorf, but a little bit pimply and awkward around girls, but they bloomed beautifully in French class when comfortably masked by using a new language. They were perhaps a little too boisterous for a French teacher’s liking, but the rest of us all enjoyed the show.

Anyways, Waldorf and Statler took to a specific phrase, for no apparent reason: “et après ça… le déluge!!”

They said it after everything and very loudly. “Salut, je m'appelle Luc. Et après ça… Le DELUGE!!” “Cette viande est délicieuse. Et après ça… Le DELUGE!!” “J'aime écouter le petit oiseau. Et après ça… Le DELUGE!!” Over and over, always with incredible gusto.

As far as I know, there was no point in our classroom education that they learned this. I cannot remember my mother even giving us “déluge” as a vocab word. It just sounded good to them as far as I’m concerned. But they loved saying it and it caught on spectacularly. We all started finishing our thoughts that way. Even after class in the hallways, we’d be slamming our paint-chipped lockers loudly and shouting “Et après ça… Le DELUGE!!”

It simply means “And after that… THE FLOOD.”

The problem is that this part of French class is so well-ingrained in my psyche that I am tempted to finish every conversation with that phrase.

“Thank you, dinner was so delicious. And after that… THE FLOOD!!”

“Yes, I slept well. You? And after that… THE FLOOD.”

Another French lesson that has stood the test of time:

My elementary school was fortunate enough to have mini courses in French when we were in fourth grade. A guest teacher came in for two days a week and taught us French and it all culminated in a play that we performed for the school entirely in French. The year that we did it, it was “Little Red Riding Hood.”

Now, wrangling a group of fourth graders is hard enough without having to do it in another language. They basically drilled the entire play into all of us. We all recited every line of dialogue together while acting it out. Every one of us learned every line. I remember the inflection, the tone, and it all sort of fits together sing-songily in my head.

The more I speak French the more I wander around the house sing-songing to myself “Doc Doc Doc. Qui est-ce? Le Petit Chaperon rouge. Entrez. Oh le loup!”

To anyone that might hear me, I probably sound like a bad horror movie, gently singing “Knock knock knock. Who’s there? Little Red Riding Hood. Come in. Ah the wolf!” It’s so comforting in my head though.

In any case, I am glad that I’ve decided to take a course in French during my time here. Just a few hours a week, but it will be a chance to jog the memory for some far more relevant information. 

This is Belgium

“I’m sorry, I’ll have to see your visa,” the border guard barked at me.

“But I only have a passport. I was told that a tourist visa didn’t require paperwork.” I’m shuffling through my bag pulling out boarding passes, receipts, cords, and ready to deploy my laptop to show him the webpage I have saved on my computer that says that I didn’t have to file for a tourist visa – of course the page isn’t loading – there’s no wireless. Behind me I hear someone begin to grumble in Italian.

“Get out of the line,” he gestures viciously at a corner of the customs counter where I go and stand waiting until some mammoth agent approaches me frowning, “you’ll have to return to the U.S.”

I can tell that’s what he’s going to say. I’m already crying. I have three bags stationed around me as though we’re all about to be executed.

These were the nightmares that I was spinning in my head in the nights leading up to my departure from the U.S.

From the park near the Royal Museum for Central Africa

In reality, the experience went more like this.

I get off the plane at about 8 in the morning looking like a wilted cabbage and stumble through the line, handing my passport off to a very buoyant looking customs agent who stamped my passport without a glance, I retrieved my three bags and dragged them about fifty feet through a “gate” where no one said anything to me before I realized that the experience was already over and that I was in Brussels and that the greatest challenge now facing me was finding JP who was already walking towards me with a very hospitable smile.

I have never had such a pleasant or practical introduction to a city. When I decided to take the Rome study abroad program in summer 2007, they basically gave you an address and wished you the best of luck in finding your way to the apartments that the school owned. When I arrived at the apartment after several hours of hauling my luggage the wrong way through the city by the forum and then the Coliseum, I made a horrible impression on my new roommate. I smelled awful – but dammit, I wasn’t going to pay for a cab when I could walk myself there. It had looked easy enough on the map.

View from the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula

On the other end of the spectrum is my experience here in Brussels. I am incredibly blessed to have such wonderful and accommodating hosts who have stayed with me this first week in order to get me settled. And when I say “settled,” I don’t mean handing me a map and pointing me in the right direction, I mean that they have walked me to the nearest supermarket and purchased groceries for me (refusing my offer to pay), taken me to the city’s landmarks and introduced me to the Belgian moules frites, taken the tram and subway with me as a training session so that I would know which lines to take and where to find libraries, dentists, the works.

There is absolutely no comparison.

Hôtel de Ville in Grand Place

JP, an old friend of my grandfather’s is an imposing figure. In the picture that he emailed me so that we would recognize each other at the airport, he is laughing and jovial, well-dressed and ostensibly at some professional party. He was holding a glass of white wine in one hand and seemed to be caught in the middle of a joke. What the picture fails to convey is how tall he is. When first entering the house that they have in Woluwe St. Pierre I remarked on how high the ceilings were and he looked up in surprise “really? You think they are high?” Of course, to him they are not – to a man who requires such clearance, you would need higher ceilings. Or maybe I’m just short and used to living in a basement.

Nonetheless, I have grown incredibly fond of him in a very short time. Bearded and soft-spoken with a great deal of laughter behind his eyes, I find it very difficult to think of him as anything but a delighted and delightful uncle. I enjoy speaking with him and regret only that I cannot pass the conversation comfortably in his native tongue. He speaks incredibly fluent English however and is knowledgeable about a number of subjects, from birds to post traumatic stress disorder. It seems that there are no subjects that are off limits and in that way that it is pleasant to hear polite people curse, I was particularly charmed when our parking spot was stolen from us yesterday afternoon that he loudly said, “Shit!” for my benefit.

His wife joined us today and right now I can hear her cooking in the kitchen (coq au vin). She is a lovely woman who speaks French slowly enough so that I can understand it with a light and lovely voice – all smiles and very stylish. When I gave her the earrings that my friend Marz made, she immediately took out her own and donned the new pair. “Tell your friend that she is very talented.”

They said that they are going to spend the rest of the time here speaking in French. It’s good for me and I can understand a fair amount of it. I just say very little back. Maybe that’s also a good thing.

Le ventre de Bruxelles ("The stomach of Brussels")

I am in love with this house.  One block away I can find a patisserie, a grocery store, a convenience store, and a pharmacy. It’s just a short tram ride to the city center where I have already visited the Grand Place with JP and dined along “le ventre de Bruxelles” (the stomach of Brussels), a street that is wall-to-wall restaurants of every type imaginable.  This is how I know that I am in the right city – a place that nicknames its streets for the food that you can find there.

The weather here is a mirror of Seattle (gray, mild, maybe some rain) – except that every morning this week has featured a few hours of sunlight. Yesterday, JP and I took advantage of the good weather and went down to the outdoor market and sampled fresh cheeses and artisan sausages. Then in the afternoon we went to the park in Tervuren on the edge of the Forêt de Soignes – a location perfect for an afternoon bike ride.

Bruegel's "Fight between Carnival and Lent,"
from the Museum of Fine Arts

And then this morning we went to the Museum of the Fine Arts where I was formally introduced to Bruegel and Bosch.  As it was a Sunday morning, the traffic in the museum was light enough so that JP could keep up a running stream of information about the different styles and paintings that we were viewing. He is extraordinarily knowledgeable and his enthusiasm for Bruegel has made me a fan, the same way that Rick Kenney in Rome made me love Caravaggio.

“Bruegel, beer, moules, and chocolate,” he laughs on the way back to the car, “this is Belgium.”

He is joking, of course, but it has been a lovely tour so far with food and beautiful art as the highlights.

In the afternoons, I’ve been contending with the relentless and accusatory blinking cursor on my computer screen (a battle for another blog post). I have not had a McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts coffee, Diet Coke, or the general garbage that I usually have access to in over a week. I have salad every day with quiches and soups and very rich rillette.

Cathedral of St. Michael and Gudula at night

Which is to say, this is really all a lesson in putting aside my fears. Forget the border guard that you’ve prognosticated about, stop predicting defeat and anticipating change by tracing the possible threads to destruction, Jessica. The thing is, whatever you’ve predicted, you’re going to arrive at your destination eventually. And the chocolate at the end of the journey is worth the stress, but it never requires it.

On Leaving Your Country

"There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.” – Charles Dudley Warner

Moules Frites and The Wedding Bridge

In middle school I remember watching some Sally Struthers-like commercial plea for the children and feeling quietly confused and sad. “Why,” I asked my mother, “were the children’s bellies so big when they were so hungry?” Mom tried to explain Kwashiorkor as simply as she could to middle-school-me– how the hungriest bellies are sometimes the largest tummies because the body is trying to eat anything it can find inside their bodies and how it processes those things... wrong. Gazing down at my tiny waistline, contemplating the peanut butter balls I had just eaten, I insisted that we were going to feed one of those bellies. My parents (even though they were staring down the barrel of bankruptcy at the time) encouraged me and agreed to sponsor a kid and filled out the necessary paperwork. A few weeks later, a hand-written card arrived in our mailbox from our 10-year-old beneficiary and I wrote back and forth with my African “sibling” for the following year.

Photo: Roger S. Duncan / Forecaster

That was the last time that I was a true pen pal with anyone until this year when my grandfather and I started writing each other bi-weekly letters. His letters (always more prompt than mine) contained descriptions of the paintings that he was working on or had painted years and years ago, stories of my grandmother’s good nature and his continuing commitment to ski every winter. I had forgotten how gratifying scribbled addresses on confident, linen stationery could feel in my hand.

My grandfather at 87 years of age loves to tell his stories about travel and work. Stories that place him in Parisian bistros playing the ukulele for businessmen or buying old European candy companies and meeting wise strangers in bars (in short, a character for many a short story). And, in truth, he is the real benefactor of my European retreat. The family that is hosting me is an old colleague-turned-friend from his days traveling for business in the 60s. It is hard not to see this Belgian experience through his eyes.

So I’ve been spending some time visiting him this week. His apartment is a small gallery arrayed with paintings of WWII battlefields, New England landscapes, and artful Winslow Homer copies. A haloed vision of my grandmother hangs in pride of place near the piano she used to play and the whole house smells dimly of paint.

Heavy Water by Frank Lundblad

“You know,” he said after lunch the other day, “I think if you’re going to Brussels, we really should go and try the Moules Frites at Lion’s Pride here in Brunswick before you go.” Lion’s Pride is a Belgian establishment set off the highway of Maine and run by a proprietor who my grandfather praises for his comprehensive knowledge of beer. I have never been to a traditional Belgian restaurant (despite the fact that there are various places to sample Belgian ales and waffles throughout Seattle) and I have learned at this point to follow my grandfather’s lead and (among other things) to stay quiet when he’s telling a story. So last night, we all went to the outskirts of Brunswick on an unseasonably warm January evening and ordered three pots of mussels prepared in the customary Flemish style with fries.

If this American interpretation is any indicator, I am going to love the food in Belgium. I have always enjoyed mussels, but the light, garlicky broth that the mussels were simmered in was absolutely delicious. Apparently there are many variations on Moules Frites (from simmering them in ale or white wine, adding parsley or cooking them with crème fraiche). This chef suggests that they are going to be at their best when I arrive (between September and February) and that I might raise a few eyebrows if I suggest that the mussels were imported from the Netherlands. Good to know – I was just about to ask…

And, of course, the fries were served with mayo.

I love food that you eat with your hands – all of us knocking against each other’s knuckles as we emptied those pots. My grandfather turned to me and said “this is how you eat them in the Belgian fashion.” He took an empty shell and used its cracked opening to clamp on the meat in a fresh one and popped the mussel into his mouth, grinning broadly.

Afterwards, I shared some of the photos that my Belgian family sent me of the house I’ll be staying at in Belgium and my grandfather, eyes sparkly like he’d just come off of another Black Diamond trail at Sunday River, said “Oh – I wish I could go, too.”

My grandfather, active as he is (still biking five days a week and rigorous about attending his “Silver Sneaker” exercise classes) says that he doesn’t have much traveling left in him, hampered as he is by his breathing machine and some health problems (not that it keeps him from skiing each winter). But rest assured, Far Far, you’ll definitely be present for my jogs through the neighborhood, my tours through the Grand Place, or my visit to the Manneken Pis. Founder of this journey, I’ll definitely be thinking of you as I experience it.

And here is this little monument in time for him as I explore Europe. My mother is coming to visit in late February and she plans to rent a car – top of our list of places to visit will be Bruges and, while there, we plan on stopping by “The Wedding Bridge.” Many years ago, my grandfather went there one afternoon to paint and enjoyed the city on one of its rare sunny Saturdays with a stranger that he had met just that week at a party. That man who went with him later made a gift of that painting of the wedding bridge that still hangs at the foot of my grandfather’s stairs in his two-story house so that it greets him every morning as he comes down for breakfast. This February, I am going to go stand where his feet stood for hours as he sketched and made a new lifelong friend to ruminate on how some things hold the value of their own history for ages: paintings, stories, family, and the long list of what-have-yous that you’re familiar with. This symmetry is particularly reassuring when I’m a little nervous about how lonely I might be in a strange country – I feel comforted by the idea of inherited familiarity, as though somehow my blood will recognize the bridge and be similarly inspired. For some reason this equation makes sense to me: I can’t be too lonely in streets that my family has already traveled.  

Here is the painting of “The Wedding Bridge” – wish me a similar sunny afternoon.

The Work Ahead

My last night in Seattle, after a large nap-inducing dinner, I sat in my living room with two of my musician friends and listened to them compose songs in honor of Brussels and Titanic for my pleasure. They were the best final hours you could ever have in a departing city. And then I was gone.

Now, 48 hours later, I’ve seen the better part of the rest of my family (on both sides), including uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces, step-siblings, and the family cats who have grown very fat with their winter weight.  I stayed up late last night re-packing my bags for this weekend’s New York City Year-of-the-Shanda festivities and fell asleep to the comforting sounds of Patrick Stewart’s voice.

It is strange holding pattern to be between homes. Very familiar, but still the ground is shifting underneath your feet.

Tonight, I shared a Greek pizza with my Aunt (the one always characterized by my father as “eccentric”). While we sat in the nearly-empty Corsican restaurant she blinked at my vague descriptions of the projects I want to work on in Belgium and said “so what are you most afraid of during this adventure? What are you most excited for?”

Way to skip the chit-chat on the best places to buy chocolate and musings on your old Belgium crushes, my dear aunt! Why don’t we just get straight to the heart of the matter? This doesn’t surprise me coming from a woman who has sought out shamans and flown to Belize for drum circles and a few months ago shaved off all of her hair in solidarity with a friend of hers who’s undergoing chemo. Let’s just skip the casual banter and get right to the vulnerable underbelly. What am I afraid of? What can’t I wait for?

The fact is – I guess they amount to the same thing. The writing.

You’ll have to bear with me – I’ve been watching too much Star Trek as I fall asleep these nights, but there was a quote from a recent episode that seemed to tie a bow around this fear-excitement dynamic nicely. In an episode called “Evolution,” a wizened and brilliant researcher reflects on the path that led him to this career-capping moment and turns to a promising, young Ensign Crusher and imparts this nugget: “you will never come up against a greater adversary than your own potential, my young friend.”

It’s been awhile since I’ve had such a vast buffet of possibilities for my writing life. Maybe I’ll find this wellspring of inspiration and sit at my corner writing desk for 16 hours a day. Maybe I’ll only be able to stab out tiny poetry prompts. Maybe I’ll bring it back to you and you’ll all say “what were you even trying to do?” Maybe I’ll just say “screw it all” and write my teen movie.

But the fact is that that level of possibility and the option for greatness is a little daunting.

So maybe I’ll just go on this chocolate tour of Brussels that my friend sent me.

In any case, this evening, after everyone else went to bed, I sketched out some more of the novel outline while a fat kitty tried to sleep on my laptop. And now, a few hours later, I am reminded that it’s a truly satisfying feeling: lying under a pile of blankets having just used my computer for its intended purpose again.

I’ve got a lot of work to do.

No Need for Envy

One of my favorite people has impending nuptials this weekend. It’s going to be a pretty big do, perhaps even more anticipated than the Cullen-Swan union this past fall and certainly more well-attended (if you don’t count the theater audiences). I was honored that I was asked to serve as a bridesmaid in what has been audaciously referred to as her “VIP Entourage” and so this past weekend we caffeinated and headed out to her trial hair appointment, putting her hairdresser through her paces on Saturday morning.

Hair Jennifer and Justin

And in the well-heated, luxurious VAIN salon, we covered many topics: the current SNL cast (with Kristen Wiig as a highlight), the dynamics of the day of the wedding, and my impending trip.

“You’re going to live in Europe for five months?” the stylist asked through a gust of hairspray, “I need to hear more about this. How is that even possible?”

“Well, through a glorious series of fortunate events,” I say. I talk about living in a basement apartment while I socked money away, reaching out to my network to find a place to retreat to, I tell her about the long-time family friends who suddenly emerged from my mother’s email list to offer me their home in Brussels and the friends on Facebook or elsewhere that have helped to facilitate travel decisions, among many other strokes of luck.

“I’m so jealous,” the hairdresser says with a taut smile. I know that smile. I’ve seen that smile before, I’ve put on that smile before: leg, by painfully envious leg. It says “I hate you for having something I want,” which is meant to be flattering, but is really only evidence that snakes are more responsible with their venom. Oh, you got that scholarship, did you? So glad to hear that your application for residency was accepted! Wow, that’s two grants in one year… 

I kid. I think most envy really is an important emotion that should be taken as flattery by the enviable and as an indication of what our goals are by we, envious. It is a reminder to keep trying for something that I do still want. It’s encouragement in as much as it’s a kick in the pants.

Which makes me think, for my trip at least, I’ve been thinking about things wrong. This isn’t something that I got because I was more fortunate or lucky or even (sadly) more talented than anyone or because I had more connections than your average Joe. This little writer’s retreat blossomed because I was tired of rejected grant applications and writing in the few gaps of time on my weekends and tired of waiting for more time to emerge. So about a year after graduate school, I resolved that I would find my six months of peace on my own. I would create it myself and I set up a direct deposit for my savings account right then and there.

Then I waded through the marketing slush for four years

Climbing Towards Watership Down

And when the glorious day came to quit, I researched, reached out, and used all of the social networking tools available to me to find what I needed to get away and spend more time with the words that have been my family since I first plowed through Watership Down.

I did this without having anything special to recommend me. Which means, that no one has to be jealous of me. I haven’t earned it, in fact. You can do it, too.

Which, so far, is the best byproduct of my decision to do this. Even if I don’t write a word or learn a thing about myself, I like that there are at least a few people who have said to themselves, “well, why not me?” Why not, indeed.

Someone who I’ve long-admired and have inelegantly tried to court as a friend for a few years had dinner with me the other day. As ever she was coifed and hilarious and quoting both TV shows and Jane Eyre within the same space of dialogue, but she also paused over her overpriced and very posh Seattle BBQ when the talk turned to my departure and she said “you’ve actually really inspired me. I really think I’m going to make this happen for myself.”

At which point I felt as though I had already succeeded in living abroad and creating a great work of art, since clearly I had fooled this super-hip, awesome lady into thinking that I was someone to be emulated.

Anyways, it made me think that I should jot down a few of the highlights that I’ve learned so far about planning or imagining such an adventure. This is for those other dreamers among you who are toying with the idea.

The Atomium in Brussels

• Direct Deposit. This is the easiest (and most practical) part. Direct deposit part of your check into your savings and pretend that money doesn’t exist. I’d suggest no less than $100. Also, pretend like you don’t get a tax return and just make all of that money disappear directly into your savings as well. Like it never happened and it’s not there. Even if your boyfriend faces some traumatic medical emergency that you have to bail him out of – that’s not money that you have… That’s not true, bail out your boyfriend. You’ll still be glad you saved the money.
•  Be in touch with what you want. This is not something that I did very well and I wish that I had prepared myself for it more gracefully. I didn’t even know that expatriation was part of the plan until somebody suggested it and suddenly I wouldn’t relinquish the idea though I hadn’t planned for it at all. Basically for four years I had this vague notion that I wouldn’t always be taking notes in conference rooms, but I didn’t really know what the rest of the writing life looked like. I suggest dreaming more lucidly than I did: imagining what environment would be good for you to create in, researching places that might suit those goals (keeping in mind that many of your ideas might be compromised or should remain flexible), sketching outlines or character studies for your project. I think reminding yourself why you’re doing this throughout your waiting period will not only keep you sane, but will also make you more prepared when it comes time to actually plan your escape.
• Caretaker.org is a great resource. If you’re looking to live abroad, but you want to be able to sustain yourself on a reasonable budget, I would suggest caretaker.org. It is a monthly online publication that you pay a yearly subscription fee to. They post want ads for free living situations for people all over the world: from Bel-Air to the wilds of Costa Rica, for a few weeks or for years. It also has listings for every state in the U.S. if you want to keep it domestic. And hey, if you want to borrow my login for the rest of the year, message me. J
• Don’t hate on the social networking. Look, I agree with a lot of the criticisms about what social networking might do to our relationships and personal interactions, but I have to say that it has bailed me out numerous times. In fact, thanks to Facebook, I’ll be visiting a friend in Gibraltar and another one in Italy during my time away. I’ve gotten back in touch with some truly lovely and important people who are making this trip possible and it’s all been through Facebook, email, and good ol’ word of mouth (thanks for asking your Welsh cousins if I could stay with them). Most people won’t be able to offer you more than good luck and advice, but you need that, too – so put yourself out there as much as possible through as many networks as possible and new opportunities are sure to turn up. This isn’t a secret plan after all. Go ahead and share.
• Understand your visa issues. Okay, I have to admit that I cried over this one. Of all the logistics that are difficult to manage, this is one of the most maddening. I can only speak to what things are like for travel to Europe, but I’m sure this is information that you’ll need for other destinations, as well. It’s all basically one Europe now (referred to as the Schengen region) and your time in any European country counts towards your time in all European countries. You cannot travel in Europe for more than 90 days in a six month period (although it doesn’t need to be consecutively). The consequences are variable and are basically determined by who’s letting you through the border. I am dealing with this problem by visiting the U.K. for about a month and therefore not counting towards those 90 days.
• Read things that inspire you. Especially if you’re going to be alone a lot (and I think that you should be), you should read often. These guys will be both your mentors and friends while you’re on your own out there. I also like reading things from or about the region. Also, if you want a good practical guide to wandering the planet, I suggest Vagabonding. Also, you’re a writer, so you like reading anyways. Indulge yourself.
• Patience. I hated waiting. I’m still terrible about it. I hope I wasn’t grouchy for all four years (and apologies if I was), but let me remind you now that one of the things that makes this is easier is that there are a lot of other things that you can do while you’re waiting for quitting day to arrive. I traveled to Haiti, wrote lots of poems and short stories, and founded an arts non-profit with my friends. These things make the time pass more quickly and will, I’d wager, give you other things to write about.

This is not to discount, of course, the enormous amount of good fortune and help I've received from the people around me and I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say as the trip unfolds, but until then, this is just a reminder that you don’t have to be jealous (if you are). You’re probably smarter and better off than I was. You probably already have a savings account that you can start from and better first starts in your writing drawer. Also, this very practical five-year plan isn’t the only path, either. Some people read The Secret and suddenly achieve their dreams. In any case, “Get thee to thine writer’s retreat!”