Make More Decisions and Less Choices.
I’m writing to you about the time I quit my job, ended my relationship and moved to Spain. I promise not to use a single Eat, Pray, Love quote. Except for this one: “The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving”. Damnit. Two sentences in and I’ve already written myself into my own cliche. Nothing to be done. I can promise you this though: the story doesn’t end with me falling in love with a hunky guys on an Indonesian beach. Because A) I’m a lesbian, B) I’ve never been to Indonesia and C) I don’t care for sand.
I could tell you why I left, but I think it’s far more interesting to hear about what I found. The reason I left is whiny and entitled, and if I’d just taken a deep breath and eaten more kale, I maybe would have stayed. The woman I left was my best friend. I’m relieved to say, and this is entirely due to her grace, she still is.
But I didn’t stay. I packed a bag one cold A.F. February night and walked down our snowy front steps. I thought about taking the subway, but instead I walked. I passed a 7/11 and bought a pack of cigarettes and a lottery ticket. I guess I was feeling lucky? I didn’t win. I kept walking. I kept making decisions until I found myself on an Air France flight bound for Lisbon. I felt like a piece of shit.
I’ve been in Spain 12 months and I now know the following things: There’s no straightforward translation of the phrase “good timing”. The closest is “the selection of an opportune moment”. This says a lot about Spanish timekeeping. In a word? Bad.
Thing two: Spanish Wheel of Fortune is like a Dali painting come to life. There are frantic zooms and sideways camera action, a live band that randomly strikes up a song, and a dreamy soap opera host who wears his shirt buttoned down to his navel. Sometimes, he sings with the band. Thing the third: Horse drawn carriages are as likely to run you down as a grandmother in an electric wheelchair.
Other miscellany: The smell of roasted chestnuts smells the same whether you’re in New York City or Seville. To call ham a food is to do it great indignity. It is venerated. If they could find a way to make a virgin Mary out of ham, they would do it. Nevermind. They did it. The exquisite smell of 15,000 orange trees blossoming in the pretty streets of Seville can bring you to your knees. Quite literally. If you have allergies, Seville in the spring is not for you — unless you enjoy feeling like your face is melting off your head into an off-brand box (or ten) of kleenex.
I’ve been away from home a year, and I continue to be confused about the following things: What is the “point”? Does it matter that I haven’t decided what I want to be when I grow up [editor’s note: the author is 36 years old and very much grown up. If you thought you were reading the work of a precocious 23 year old dilettante and thought to yourself “oh, she’s so charmingly naive in a Hannah-from-Girls kind of way. She’s so young. When she matures she’ll settle down”, you wouldn’t be the first. We decided to publish the story anyway when we found out that she was middle-aged because it made the whole thing artfully pathetic. Don’t you think?”.] Oh! This is a good one. I do NOT know how to make rice. That’s still a mystery.
Look, the whole point here is this: wherever you go there you are. There’s no getting away from yourself. You’re a lonely, anti-social windbag in Chicago? You’ll be a lonely, anti-social windbag in Thailand. Baggage claim is littered with the dreams of so many who think that changing where they are will fundamentally change who they are. The shelves of airport bookstores sag under the weight of travel memoirs meant to inspire you to throw on your best walking shoes, buy a new moleskin and be your “truest self”. I’m not trying to burst bubbles, I’m just asking you to look at the grass under your feet. Is it green? Good. Then enjoy it. It’s the same shade of green over here.
I’m not staring enviously at your grass either — which is probably a lot like the grass I left behind last May. I am where I am, and that’s all there is to say. Of course I have a choice, and you do too. But what if choice increasingly feels like an inundation and a burden. What about not choosing. What about telling yourself to make do with last Spring’s shoes? What about turning down the volume on the ads, what about turning the lights off on Pinterest. Stop choosing. I’m not asking you to stop making decisions. My God, no. Decisions are the current in the river, they’re the wind to the seed. But stop forcing 1000 choices onto yourself everyday. Be content to be carried along by decisions that you made days ago. You went to the grocery store two days ago, for example, you don’t have to debate between take-out and cooking. You’ve sunk the cost into shopping. Reinforce the decision you’ve already made.
Related: There are fruits and vegetables that are local and seasonal. They are fewer than those that were grown in Chile. Eliminate the choice between Avocados and carrots in the middle of winter. Live like your Dutch/German/Nigerian/Chinese ancestors and use what’s available to you. Forget about fast fashion. Buy solid colours and wear them like a uniform. Eliminating choice without eliminating decisions — that’s the best thing I have learned. Defer choice, choose less, decide more and be happy with it. Give the decision a melatonin, read it Go The Fuck to Sleep and put it to bed.
