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3 years ago, I saved the first link about Costa Rica. It was an Escape Artist page on living in Costa Rica, and I dunno if it was a specific article or the general info page the link redirects to today. It was a Tuesday and I was at work, so I’m deducing that the idea was hatched and the ball started rolling that exact day because my MO then was to spend a lot of time at work surfing. Or rather, dreaming.
Every dream has to start somewhere, and I’ve had many that started and eventually fizzled out. Some of them were of the completely half-assed variety that have nothing to do with the real me (like the nebulous wanting a Good Job that made Lots of Money), or explorations of the other countries we considered that eventually came back down to earth.
I can see why most people never make their dreams come true. It takes effort and focus. It’s like another job, in some ways. But if it really means something to you, you’ll stick to it. It’s no different from an inventor or author who take rejections in stride (or learns from them) and doggedly pursues their dream. People do it all the time. It just takes time and effort.
Dealing with reality is not as fun as dreaming. Lately it’s been a slightly uncomfortable stage - taking apart the life that I’m used to. I’ve also thought a bit about some of the ‘Oh shit’ moments in the future, the times when I’ll realize that there’s no turning back. #1 is the thing I look forward to more than anything else - giving notice at my dayjob. Who wouldn’t want to quit their job and live their dream instead? But it’s also giving up the perception of security. It’s freaky.
3 years ago, it started with the simple act of saving a link. 2 years ago, I was still saving links but the dream was alive and well. 1 year ago (almost to the day!) I had my epiphany that it HAD to happen. (Man does a life improve when you go with your gut and make strides towards fulfilling yourself.) My hope now is that we move well before July 5, 2009 - hopefully Christmas will come early.
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M has a thing against secrets. He can’t stand ‘em. The couple of times we thought it would be fun to tell him about a secret (like We’re going somewhere special tomorrow - it’s a secret), he insisted on knowing and quickly moved on to a borderline, teary-eyed fit. I was surprised he was taking it so hard, and revealed the answer to prevent the situation from needlessly escalating. We’ve learned it’s not a a game to play with him. Dunno why, but he can’t stand it. So it figures that we’d think that he’d be able to keep a secret, right?
Yesterday, J lost her favorite doll (named Doc) during a trip to the mall. She slept in the car and when we got back I had a talk with M that until we had a chance to go acquire another one, we were going to tell her the partial truth that we did not know where it was. That part was true - we had no idea exactly where it might be. This would be plausible to J, since toys get lost all the time. We could then hold-off on reacquiring the doll for a few days.
When J woke up she and M were in the bedroom by themselves for a bit. Within a few minutes she miraculously found out that Doc had been lost at the mall, and was, as might be expected, quite upset. I was in the grocery store at the time and made a sidetrip to buy another doll, hoping the whole time the store would have one in stock. On the way there, I was upset that M told her. Why would he do it? It’s not unusual for them to argue and her to get upset, but it’s usually because he’s brutally honest and doesn’t stop talking.
It didn’t make sense that he would say something knowing that she would get upset. And I tried to think along unschooling lines, to think that a child is trying to do right instead wrong. So I came back to expectations - maybe we were expecting him to do something that he honestly couldn’t. That’s when I made the connection with his aversion to secrets. It did seem unreasonable to expect someone who couldn’t handle having a secret kept from him to keep one from someone else. He’s done it lots of times, actually, like revealing presents to people before they can be opened. M can’t do secrets. It made sense.
After I got the second-to-last doll, I called Trish on the way home to discuss my realization. And instead of asking him to keep another secret, I told him I found the doll ‘in a fold of the stroller’ that had escaped our attention before. M was pleasantly surprised, J was happy Doc was found, and I’m glad I wasn’t home to just get upset and jump to a conclusion.
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Arp and I have loved mojitos ever since we discovered them, quite a few years back. When we lived in Manhattan, we’d have to scour the local markets to find some decent mint. It was sometimes hard to find, which was irritating when we had the urge for a Mojito.
Since we’ve lived in our current house in the exurbs, I’ve invested some effort in growing our own mint. My favorite variety for mojitos is chocolate mint. The first year, I listened to all the warnings about mint taking over the garden, and I contained the mint plants in huge buried buckets. Well, we drink a lot of mojitos in the summer, and we quickly exhausted the supply of my bucket-bound mint. The next year I threw caution to the wind, dug up the buckets, and let my mint taste the full freedom of my herb garden. Holy mojitos! We were in heaven!
But something has happened this year that is totally unexpected. Arp and I both admitted to each other the other day that we are a tiny bit bored of drinking mojitos. We still wanted the mint, but we needed it to be something a little different, more exciting. The garden is overflowing with mint, of course.
Now, the great thing about Mojitos is that they don’t have any fancy ingredients. Rum, seltzer, sugar, lime, mint. How easy is that? We get a big ole jug of rum and we are set as long as the mint in the garden lives and we remember to buy the limes occasionally at the supemarket. When we whipped out all our drink-making books the other night, all the recipes seemed to include odd-sounding liquors that we most certainly didn’t have. (Before we had kids, our liquor cabinet was stocked with quite a few interesting concoctions, but our supply has dwindled. We are now at rum and tequila.)
Tell me, dear readers - what exciting drinks can I make with mint?
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Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is about long-term, unconventional world travel. Conventional would be the notion that long-term travel is possible only by the very wealthy galavanting from exclusive resort to private island in luxury. In reality, long-term travel is very possible for people of more normal means, but to do it in a fulfilling fashion requires a mindset of openness and focus on what’s important. This is also what is essential to a successful life as an expat, and Potts distills it so well that every expat (and expat-to-be) should read this book.
Vagabonding - n. a privately meaningful manner of travel that emphasizes creativity, adventure, simplicity, awareness, discovery, independence, realism, self-reliance, and the growth of the spirit.
This definition, from the book’s opening page, succinctly lists all the qualities that a successful expat needs. Quite a few expats move out of their chosen destination within 2 years. There aren’t any hard numbers, but it is likely in the range of 20-40%. I imagine that a common thread amongst them would be a lack of flexibility and maintaining the same mindset and expectations they had in their home country.
Clocking in at 206 pages, the book is an easy, worthwhile, inspiring read. Interspersed in the chapters are quotes from vagabonders, and each chapter ends with a profile of a path-blazing vagabond. These pioneers include John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club), Thoreau and Walt Whitman. It’s cool to read about them, but of more value are the quotes and comments by the less-reknowned, everyday vagabonds like ourselves.
Also included at the end of each chapter is a list helpful resources (books & websites). A more up-to-date list of resources, vagabonding profiles, forum and Potts’ blog can be found at the companion website, www.vagabonding.net.
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