 Rich and I shared this happiness moment with our friend Pete and our flamingos in 2019. “Imagine that scientists have created a happiness machine. A machine that could make you as happy as you like with the push of a button. Would you use it? Would you push the button?” asks Dacher Keltner, director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. “I’ve asked that question of my students for years, and most of them say no. Most of them want to find true happiness on their own, in a genuine way. But how do you do that?” Great minds have been debating that one for the entire 200,000 years Homo Sapiens has had the power of speech. And today, my husband, Rich, is going to put in his two cents worth on the subject, having just completed the Science of Happiness course presented by Keltner and Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of the GGSC. “I consider myself to be a happy person,” Rich told me in an exclusive interview at our kitchen table. “I became interested in the question of why. I wanted to know what it takes to be a happy person. Also, my wife encouraged me to do it.” “She sounds like a very wise woman,” I replied. “What did you learn?”  “Probably the biggest surprise was that 50% of your happiness is inherited, 10% is your life situation, such as your profession and how comfortable you are economically, and 40% is what you do with your life and how you view your life.” “How can you inherit happiness? Is it built into your DNA?” “A surprising amount is physiological,” he said. “For instance, the vagus nerve runs from the brain throughout the body. Some are born with more of it. It’s the thing that responds physically when you see a beautiful sky that takes your breath away.” Simon-Thomas has said that “Physically speaking, our vagus nerve represents our sense of connection and closeness.” Rich added, “There’s a dopamine stimulator in the brain called Oxytocin (not to be confused with the opioid OxyContin). The more it’s stimulated, the more caring people are. Again, some of us are just born with more of it.”  “My joyful moments are spontaneous conversations with strangers about something that makes me feel connected with them,” says Emiliana Simon-Thomas. “I have a bigger trust in humanity. It makes me feel safe in the world.” Obviously there's not much we can do about our DNA, but we can work with the 40% of happiness that is under our control. “Being happy takes a lot of work,” Rich said. For a start, you can't go after it directly. “If you’re seeking happiness all the time, you are going to fail. Life doesn’t work like that. Happiness is really a byproduct. The ancient Greeks called it eudaimonia, human flourishing and blessedness, achieved by a life of virtue and ethical wisdom. Contrary to what it says in the Declaration of Independence, you can’t pursue happiness; you pursue something else and receive happiness.” “Like what?” I asked. “What can you pursue in life that will lead to flourishing, blessedness, and happiness?” “Help others and show gratitude,” he replied promptly. “It’s all about kindness. Kindness leads to compassion. Compassion leads to altruism. Compassion makes you want to do something for others; altruism is actually doing it. All that is totally different from empathy, pity, or sympathy, which don’t call you to action. 'I feel your pain' isn’t action and doesn’t lead to happiness.”  Altruist Chuck Collins, great grandson of meatpacker Oscar Mayer, chose to give away his inheritance at the age of 26. His book Born on Third Base describes his lifelong effort to reduce inequality and contribute to the common good. “How do we start?” I asked. “The Buddhists tell us to stay present to what’s going on. And listen. One of the skills they encourage in this course is listening. Humans go mind-wandering 45% of the time; instead of focusing on the present, the mind is drifting into the past or future.” Paying attention, he said, lets us notice opportunities to help others. “It’s the little things. Like the time you helped that old lady up the steps of the café in Greece. Or the other day, when we passed those two beggars and one said, ‘Spare any chocolate?’ and you had some in your purse so you gave it to them.” I had to laugh, remembering the surprise and delight on the beggars’ faces; they’d been kidding around with the request, and now they were each holding a foil-wrapped square of high-end dark chocolate with sea salt caramel — something I know from personal experience will brighten anyone’s day. The four of us laughed together and parted on a little buzz of joy.  February 22 to 26 is Random Acts of Kindness Week. Dacher Keltner suggests we've survived as a species because cooperation and helpfulness aren't rare or random, but rather are built into our everyday lives. Photo by Getty “I get how helping others makes you happy,” I said. “Where does gratitude fit in?” “Expressing gratitude is underrated; we rarely do it except in eulogies. The presenters suggested writing a letter to someone who did something you appreciate, and then calling them up and reading them the letter. They also recommended keeping a gratitude journal, or developing a nightly habit of climbing into bed and thinking of three things you’re thankful for from your day.” I heard lots about this a few weeks ago, when Rich was going through the gratitude section of the course. That Sunday, I suggested we each bring to lunch three objects representing things we were thankful for. I showed up with three small boxes. One held the heart-shaped locket Rich gave me for our 30th wedding anniversary. The second held pieces of wisdom I’d scribbled down on Post-It notes and pasted above my work desk, such as “Never chase a missed train … get a pastry and wait for the next one.” The third box held the keys to this house, our safe haven during quarantine.  My three boxes of gratitude “Taking this course during pandemic gave me the opportunity to reflect more deeply,” Rich said. “When everything is ‘normal’ you tend to accept things as they are. Now, faced with a life-changing situation, you can view it as an opportunity to learn or an impediment. The pandemic allowed me to learn about myself in a difficult situation. When daily stuff gets me aggravated — yes, I’m thinking of our struggles with the Spanish bank — I try to see it in the context of all the small, good things happening to me, and ask myself if it’s really that important.” He thought for a bit, and then he added, “Even in these challenging times, you can find small blessings that make you grateful. And those blessings make it possible to remember that every day is sacred.” Has anyone done something kind for you lately? What are you grateful for these days? Have moments of joy helped you survive the pandemic? If there was a happiness button, would you press it? Please let me know in the comments section below. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic, if possible with some remnants of our sanity and good humor. Each week I provide tips, strategies, and reasons for hope.
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 White Wine Spritzers with Fruit are a lovely way to start off a date night. You can find the recipe on my Quarantine Cuisine page. It’s been one of those weeks — the kind that makes you think your head’s going to explode. For a start, Rich and I were enmeshed in a ghastly tangle with our Spanish bank involving a new pin number they’d sent out of the blue, texting it to our Seville phone number — which isn’t operational. No pin, no online banking. Not good. Multiple emails and phone conversations later, the bank grudgingly texted a new pin to our US phone. It didn’t work. Over Skype, the woman at the bank explained protocol now required sending the next pin by snail mail to our Seville apartment. At this point, the screen went dark and silent. “We’ve been cut off,” I said. Rich and I then proceeded to vent our feelings about the bank and its pin protocols, expressing ourselves with a good deal vigor for about five heated minutes. When we finally began to wind down, we heard the woman at the bank say brightly (in Spanish), “So, is there anything else I can help you with today?” Ooops! Apparently we were still on the line with her. Abashed, I mumbled “No, gracias,” and hung up. Then came good news from the county: my age group (65+) was now eligible for the Covid vaccine.  In the stampede for appointments, every time I logged on, it was already too late to get on the list with my provider, the county health department, or a pharmacy. Rich, determined to find an open time slot, took it on as a personal vendetta. Meanwhile, a friend in Seville retrieved the bank’s letter and emailed us the new pin. Surprise! That didn’t work either. “It’s like one of those ransom movies,” I said. “Where the kidnappers make the guy with the money race to a phone booth only to be sent on to another and yet another.” “Yeah, except this time, they’re holding the money hostage.”  This scene from the Spanish TV series Money Heist reflects how I envision our bankers celebrating every time they get to put off reuniting us with our money. I realized we needed something to take our minds off all the bother and frustration. “Date night on Saturday?” I said. Date nights have become one of our key pandemic strategies. We rely on them to break up the routine and refresh our minds, hearts, and spirits. If you’ve never done a date night at home, it’s really quite simple: all you need is food and some form of entertainment that sparks a conversation that isn’t about the pandemic, politics, or Spanish banking. It helps to find a fresh location to eat; we often use a folding table, the coffee table, even the floor in places like the living room or foyer. The point is to make the night feel different from the hundreds that have gone before. If it feels different, so do you. Saturday was pub night. The food was the sort of casual stuff you’d nibble in a bar: smoked salmon, bread sticks wrapped in prosciutto, goat cheese with rosemary, olives, artichoke hearts, and of course, wine. (Yes, I was inspired by Carlotta’s aperitivo in last week’s post.) I’d sprung for some high-end shrimp too, but when I opened the fridge, worrying smells emanated from the deli drawer. Recalling with a shudder the time Rich ate dubious shellfish in Mexico (you do not want to know the details), I wasted no time in flinging the shrimp into the outside trash bin. No matter, we had plenty to munch on. I arranged the food on "the bar," a big wooden cutting board set in the pass-through between the kitchen and dining area, then dragged over a couple of tall stools. To set the mood, I played a YouTube video of a pub with music and background chatter. I turned down the lights, added candles, and suddenly this everyday space was transformed into a cozy, intimate tavern.  Turning out the lights let us ignore the kitchen and imagine we were elsewhere. Once everything was in place, I went upstairs to collect Rich. For both of us, one of the most delightful parts of date night is the anticipation. When it’s Rich’s turn to arrange things, I sit upstairs listening to the bustle below, sniffing whatever delectable scents are wafting out of the kitchen, trying to guess what he’s got planned. I’ve written about some of these evenings: 1950s sci fi (The Virus That Saved Humanity), dive bars (Bar Hopping, Quarantine-Style), and winter wonderland (Relax: Nobody's Cancelling the Holidays). Others include a drive-in movie (on the couch), picnics (indoors and out), sunbathing (hot lights and beach towels), and themed film nights (Hitchcock classics). Scrolling for ideas, I’ve read plenty of articles about date nights written by people who have obviously never experienced one. “Read your favorite novel aloud” to your partner? That would take an average of eight to thirteen hours. Are we supposed to stay up till dawn? “Tackle a DIY project like painting a room together.” Yes, that wouldn’t be at all stressful at the end of a tense week. The most bonehead idea I heard (and I am not making this up) was “Clean out your closets.” Seriously? Clean out your closets as a way to reconnect with your soul mate? If Rich ever suggested that one, we’d be spending our next date night having a Zoom conference with a marriage counselor.  Honestly, does this say "date night" to you? Clearing out clutter can be satisfying, but not in that way. And then there’s “Just talk.” As you may have guessed, Rich and I are both champion chatterers, but after approximately a billion hours of one-on-one this year, even we need some fresh material. Sources such as 36 Questions: How to Fall in Love or 350 Good Questions to Ask have sparked hours of stimulating discussion. Here’s a sampling:
For many of us, the answer to that last one would be the video of the lawyer whose Zoom filter made him appear to be a talking cat. How did this happen? According to a 12-year-old in a YouTube video (and I think we can all agree that’s as expert as you get), you simply install Snap Camera and choose a filter, showing up for online dates as a cat, a pirate, or a talking potato with a halo of hearts. For now, I’m keeping my dates real and low tech. And Saturday night certainly needed no enhancing; we were celebrating Rich’s triumph in securing my first vaccine appointment. One of the lesser pharmacy chains had such a convoluted sign-up form that anyone with any sense soon abandoned hope and went elsewhere. But to Rich, a hardened veteran of the Spanish banking system, it was child’s play. I’ll be getting my inoculation this week, most likely just about the time you read this. Hallelujah! It’s almost enough to give me hope of someday getting back into our Spanish bank account. Have you ever done an at-home date night? What else is helping you stay sane in these crazy times? Let me know in the comments below. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic, if possible with some of our sanity and sense of humor intact. Each week I provide tips, strategies, and reasons for hope. Sign up HERE to get free stories in your inbox each week. Feel free to share this post link with family and friends. https://www.enjoylivingabroad.com/my-blog/how-and-why-to-have-great-date-nights-at-home  Patrick Abbott's popular Amsterdam coffee house, Monks, is still open for takeout, which he provides to home workers who come down from their apartments for coffee, fresh air, and a little human contact. I was both charmed and staggered to learn, when Spain first went into lockdown last year, that hairdressers were deemed essential workers. “Otherwise, how are old ladies supposed to manage if they can no longer wash their own hair?” said officials, no doubt breaking into an icy sweat at the idea of having to justify salon closure to their feisty abuelas. In France, recurring quarantines require closing all shops except those selling bare necessities. “Thankfully,’ remarked my friend Maer, “the French consider wine, pastries, and chocolates to be necessities!” Les Européens are so civilized, n'est-ce pas? I began wondering: Are Europeans finding ways to turn lockdown into a viable lifestyle? Are they learning how to adjust in ways that we haven't considered here in the US? When I reached out to friends in France, Italy, and the Netherlands, they poured out tales of much tighter restrictions on commerce, socializing, and mobility than anything we've seen in the States. And then — human nature being what it is — they explained how some people are circumventing them. “We are currently in our third lockdown with a nightly curfew. Be indoors by 9:00 pm and you can be back on the streets by 4:30 am,” says my friend Patrick, the Irish owner of the popular Amsterdam coffee house Monks Coffee Roasters. Lockdown requires non-essential shops to close. “This is being flouted like a badly run speakeasy with unmarked bags and bizarre hand signals. The basic rule of law is, if you sell food or medicine, you can open your doors. ‘You want fries with those new pants/washing machine/garden chairs?’”  In Turin, Italy, Paolo and Carlotta credit Luna's sweet personality with helping them get through lockdown. Naturally I asked how everybody was staying (relatively) sane. “Good question!” says Carlotta, an Italian tour guide and chef living in Turin, Italy with her boyfriend Paolo. “I would love to answer that I made the most of all this free time by doing a lot of exercise and eating well; the reality is I've been eating more comfort food than ever! What kept us sane during the toughest times was our dog, Luna; we adopted her in early March 2020, by chance just before the first lockdown started. She is our furry princess, she's the funniest and most sociable dog ever, and she gave us a legal reason to get out for a walk when it was forbidden!” “People are renting dogs on leash time,” reports Patrick. “I’ve also heard of cat walking taking hold, but can’t confirm.” It gets crazier than that; in March the Spanish news showed locals walking plastic dogs, chickens, even goldfish; the police were not amused and soon put a stop to it. “If I could avoid doom-scrolling, I would be saner,” observes Maer, an American living in Montpellier, France, with her husband, Mark. “We’re retired from the film industry and I think that has ruined TV and most films for us. We can no longer manage that wonderful suspension of disbelief they require. We get bored and wander off to read.” They also take online classes, including Yale’s Science of Well-being (similar to Rich’s UC Berkeley happiness course).  Maer and Mark in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Patrick and his Dutch fiancé, Margreit, amuse themselves with AI. “We got one of those ‘Hey Google’ speaker things," he says, "and although it was slightly creepy at first, we enjoy the randomness of asking her questions, teasing her, challenging her, and making her play obscure music. I know, it’s a machine, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers; she’s the only stranger you're allowed to have in your house at the moment.” Carlotta says she and Paolo “do an aperitivo on Fridays to cheer ourselves up. Every week I put together something different: olives, a good salami, some mortadella cubes, a selection of cheeses, croutons with butter and anchovies, salmon, ham, savory pie... you name it! We open a good bottle and do a little ‘party,’ just the two of us.” Her favorite comfort recipe: spinach squares. [Carlotta’s Spinach Square Recipe]  Rich and I met Carlotta and Paolo in 2019 when they hosted an EatWith dinner in their home. We started with a delicious aparativo much like this, accompanied by glasses of Rocca dei Forti, a gorgeous, dry, sparkling white wine accented with a dash of vermouth. Patrick just moved and will be kitchenless until March. “We live with a loan microwave oven and takeaway food. Not great but we’re still alive … just. Once the kitchen arrives, the first thing I will prepare is my sensational Shepherd’s Pie. It’s a secret recipe handed down through generations of my family.” Oh yes, I talked him into sharing it with us! [Patrick’s Shepherd’s Pie Recipe] Everyone struggles. “I work in tourism," says Carlotta, "and the biggest challenge is figuring out when I'll be able to work again and how tourism habits will change. The second biggest challenge is fitting in clothes after all that comfort food!” For Maer, staying put is hard. “My main jam is going places, walking around and looking at things; having to cool my heels has been tough. But then I realize that the only thing wrong with my present moment is my idea of how the future will be. If I manage to turn that off, all is well. We’re warm, dry, well-fed, and well-befriended, and that’s enough.”  Maer enjoys a quiet moment at the Petit Palais, home to the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts. When in Paris, she and Mark live in a tiny 220-square foot apartment. At the coffee house, Patrick deals with maskless conspiracy theorists and other tests to his patience and diplomacy. On a personal level? “The biggest challenge I faced was grief. We lost two family members back in Ireland to Covid, and being unable to be at funerals due to travel restrictions was difficult. My aunty was a particularly close person to me and watching on a computer screen my mum, that I haven’t hugged for over a year, at the coffin of her sister was heartbreaking.” None of them expects to be vaccinated any time soon. Carlotta and Maer are hoping for fall; Patrick says, “By Christmas.” All three feel they’ve learned a lot during lockdown. “I had the illusion to be in control my future; well, that was a big fat lie!” says Carlotta. “I'm learning to enjoy the simple things that I have always taken for granted.” The pandemic, observes Patrick, “made me realize how entitled and indulged we are as a species. Personally I took stock of what I had and how much I actually need.” Maer echoes this sentiment. “It’s a superpower to be comfortable with very little.”  Patrick enjoying a lighthearted moment at Monks. When I asked Patrick if he thought the world would ever return to normal, he said, “There is never really a ‘normal.' We are always evolving. Now there is a shift in mentality and behavior, and I think it’s a good one. I’m hopeful for humanity as a whole. Fighting a pandemic as opposed to a war has made the planet smaller and made us realize how very vulnerable we are.” “Holy smokes are we all interconnected,” says Maer. “The butterfly effect is very real.” This has been a rough time for everyone. As one gastroenterologist put it, using the terminology of her field, “If 2020 was a drink, it would be a colonoscopy prep.” While 2021 offers reasons for cautious optimism, the pandemic is far from over, the outcome still uncertain. “At the beginning I thought we would return to a better normal,” says Carlotta. “Now I just hope it won’t be worse. But I can’t hide a sparkle of hope for us to learn a lesson and be a better society.” Amen to that! How's your pandemic going? Any tips for adapting gracefully to the new abnormal while we wait for our vaccines?  In other news, people are starting to dress up their cats for Zoom work meetings. Mr. Fluffy looks worried he will now be expected to pitch in and help write the reports. This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic, if possible with some of our sanity and sense of humor intact. Each week I provide tips, strategies, and reasons for hope. Sign up HERE to get free stories in your inbox each week. Feel free to share this post link with family and friends. https://www.enjoylivingabroad.com/my-blog/europes-creative-ways-of-adapting-to-the-new-abnormal YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY  Crazy dances added to the roar of the 1920s. Here Norwegian pole vault champion, Charles Hoff, and Tempest Stevens are shown in a Charleston contest. Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images “Debauchery!” said my sister-in-law Deb in our last Zoom call. “I just read that things won’t get back to normal until 2024 and then we’ll have a wild period of debauchery!” These days everybody’s got a theory about how things will look “when all this is over.” Some financial types say this decade will mark the end of the world economy — “driving the last nail into the coffin of the globalists,” as one put it. Psychologists fear many of us will never hug, shake hands, or even leave our homes again. Inspired by predictions that das volk will continue avoiding bars, a German publication announced “the end of the night.” Some sociologists suggest young people will no longer engage in casual sex. Malarkey, applesauce, and horsefeathers, say I. Clearly these prognosticators have forgotten about a little thing I like to call “human nature.” People always have — and always will — strive to make a buck, seek congenial places to raise a glass, and find opportunities to fool around. That’s why the debauchery prediction actually made sense to me. I tracked down the author, who turned out to be Dr. Nicholas Christakis, an esteemed Harvard-educated social scientist and physician who is running Yale’s Human Nature Lab. One of his areas of expertise is how our behaviors influence contagion in society. As you can imagine, his thoughts are in hot demand these days.  “Many people seem to think it’s the actions of our government that are causing the economy to slow – that’s false,” says Dr. Nicholas Christakis. “It’s the virus that’s causing the economy to slow, because economies collapsed even in ancient times when plagues happened, even when there was no government saying close the schools and close the restaurants.” “Plagues are not new to our species — they’re just new to us,” observes Christakis. “During epidemics you get increases in religiosity, people become more abstentious, they save money, they get risk averse, and we’re seeing all of that now — just as we have for hundreds of years during epidemics.” The biggest difference this time around? “We’re the first generation of humans alive who has ever faced this threat that [can] respond in real-time with efficacious medicines. It’s miraculous.” He suggests vaccination will take all of 2021, and we’ll need the next two years to recover from the socioeconomic devastation left in the pandemic’s wake. And then? Look out, world! Christakis predicts “another Roaring Twenties” like the one that followed the 1918 flu pandemic. When it comes to eras, the original Roaring Twenties was, as they said back then, the “gnat’s eyebrows.” Having survived the twin traumas of World War I and the flu pandemic, our nation enjoyed a booming economy and was ready to release its pent-up desire to make whoopee. Women, energized by winning the right to vote, were busy breaking taboos: bobbing their hair, smoking cigarettes, wearing dresses that (gasp!) bared the knee, and getting fitted for (I blush to mention it) diaphragms for birth control. African Americans introduced the world to thrilling new music that gave the era its other name: the Jazz Age. Prohibition tried to put a lid on things, so public-spirited members of the underworld quickly set up speakeasies to provide enough giggle water to keep everyone zozzled. The economy doubled in just nine years, and with so much extra voot jingling in their pockets, people bought radios — creating mass communication, the advertising industry, and modern consumerism. Egged on by radio sponsors, everyone spent as never before on stuff they’d never heard of and often didn’t need. And we’ve never stopped. One of the hottest controversies in the “when all this is over” debate is whether or not we’ll revert to the cycle of compulsive consumption that Madison Avenue has spent a century programming us to believe is not just normal but our patriotic duty and one of life’s great pleasures.  Black Friday. Enough said. “The mutation of shopping from buying necessary stuff to being a leisure activity — “retail therapy” — has been one of the most miserable cons of modern life,” writes Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore. “If anything good has come out of this awful time, it is this … a pause in mindless consumption. ‘When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping,’ they used to say. Well, it’s no longer true, if it ever was.” “If all this consumption was making us deliriously happy that would be one thing,” points out Harvard economist Juliet B. Schor. “But in fact what we find is after intense desires to acquire goods, Americans are discarding them at record rates.” How much stuff are we throwing away? Pre-pandemic it was about 300 million tons a year — 4.5 pounds per person per day. Top discards included food (30.63 million tons), plastic (26.82 million tons) and a little further down the list, textiles including clothing (11.5 million tons). I was aghast to learn that while sheltering in place we’ve been generating 25% more trash.  Designer Marina Hamm is proud that her company, Volcom, makes swimsuits out of old fishing nets and used carpets. It's a step in the right direction, but that swimsuit is still likely to end up in a landfill soon. All this raises a moral dilemma. I’ve spent decades trying to be a responsible steward of the planet and doing my share of reducing, reusing, and recycling. Back in Ohio I organized our town’s curbside recycling program and Earth Day activities, and nowadays I write a weekly column on climate change for a Seville-based publication. But I live in the real world with conflicting priorities and tough choices. While I flinch at the thought of the amount of Amazon packaging flowing in and out of my house, my pandemic survival strategy involves doing as little in-person shopping as possible. I am well aware that 80% of the people who have died of Covid-19 are in my 65+ age group. Rich, who is 76, has a mortality risk factor 220 times higher than that of young people. I am doing everything I can to keep us both safe. On that front, I have some exciting news: Rich received his first dose of the vaccine. Last Friday he went to the Marin County Fairgrounds, and after a lengthy, chilly wait to get into the main hall, he breezed through the vaccination in twenty minutes. The shot was so painless the nurse had to tell him it was over and he should 23 skidoo. When will I be inoculated? Theoretically soon, but shortages mean they’re delaying my age group a bit longer. Fingers crossed they have enough around for Rich’s second shot in a few weeks. The uncertainty is frustrating, but we feel lucky compared to our European friends, who don’t expect to be vaccinated until September, or possibly December.  Rich shows off his vaccination card and sticker. Christakis may be right that the pandemic and its aftermath won’t subside until 2024. Or it could be pure banana oil. Who knows? As humorist James Thurber wrote, “The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.” But here’s hoping that by 2024 the world is safe enough for us all to indulge in a bit of fun — if not outright debauchery, then a little lighthearted, distance-free socializing, when it’s finally safe to don our glad rags, fire up the flivver, and round up congenial pals for a night of putting on the Ritz.  I still have this dress, which I wore in 1991 to this 1920s theme murder mystery party. Before that it was my wedding dress. I'm looking forward to wearing it again in 2024. This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic, if possible with some of our sanity and sense of humor intact. Each week I provide tips, strategies, and reasons for hope. Sign up HERE to get free stories in your inbox each week. Feel free to share this post link with family and friends. https://www.enjoylivingabroad.com/my-blog/is-roaring-20s-style-debauchery-just-around-the-corner YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY  "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase," said Martin Luther King, Jr. The same goes for rickety bridges, like this one I crossed in Thailand in 1992. “The best thing I learned from our travels,” Rich remarked over Sunday lunch, “was how to live with uncertainty.” Even the most carefully planned journey holds some suspense, if only about the weather and the sheer happenstance of daily living. One January in our corporate days, Rich and I took the chairman of the board and his wife on a business trip to a luxury hotel, certain they’d love it. The heating system in their room went on the fritz, so they passed the night in shivering misery and, no doubt, cursing our names. It was even chillier in the hostel where Rich and I stayed during our visit to Veliko Tarnovo, high in the Bulgarian mountains, in the autumn of 2013. But we loved every minute of it. When you pay $28 a night, you don’t expect much. And yes, our private room had a notable lack of scattered rose petals, chocolates on the pillow, hand towels folded to look like swans — or, for that matter, heat. But the dining hall was toasty warm all day, and the communal breakfasts and dinners offered riveting conversations that Rich and I still talk about to this day.  Our private room in the Hostel Mostel, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria came with five thick wool blankets. We piled them on, and they were so heavy I could hardly turn over in the night. My point is that expectations shape how we view all experiences. As Americans, we’re brought up with the unspoken but pervasive belief that if we do everything right we can plant our feet on solid ground and count on a life that’s perfectly secure, permanently comfortable, and filled with our fair share of pleasures. That’s always been a pipe dream. “Our lives are written in disappearing ink,” said author Michelle Cliff. The pandemic has made that obvious in ways we can’t ignore. Never have so many been so uncertain about so much for so long. If we’ve got any hope of maintaining our sanity through all this, we need to find a way to embrace uncertainty. And the best way to do that, the Buddhists suggest, is to think less about the past and future, and focus on the present moment. Now, you may be thinking: “But the present moment is so boring!” Which brings us to the second thing travel can teach us: how to cope with boredom.  Our understanding of boredom is largely cultural. To the Frenchwoman above, it’s ennui, a sort of languid, jaded world-weariness. The Germans identify it straightforwardly as langeweile, a long time. Russians call it skuka after the sound of clucking chickens. In Nigeria young men speak of zaman kashin wando, sitting so long you wear out your pants. The concept of boredom is a modern invention, arising when the Industrial Revolution and train schedules suddenly required everyone to live by the clock. Identifying work hours created the idea of spare time — and pressure to maximize it before the next shift started. Australian anthropologist Yasmine Musharbash, who studies boredom in indigenous populations, says, “Traditionally, and by that, I mean pre-colonization, there would not have been such a thing as boredom. Boredom is when you rub up against time. That just would not have happened before. Because of colonization and how the day is structured — school bells, work times — time becomes a straitjacket.” In Western society, she says, it starts when we’re babies. “Bedtime trains us for work and makes us good workers. We learn that certain things need to be done at certain times. It is a pretty brutal lesson, but it is a way of accepting that time is the boss of you.” One of the hardest adjustments of the pandemic is losing the structure that has ruled our daily lives since infancy. For some, time seems to stretch out in a seamless eternity of sameness. Others are caught up in the frenzy of working from home while overseeing the kids’ online studies and doing the astonishing amount of cooking required to put three meals on the table seven days a week. Circumstances vary, but we’ve all lost the familiar routines that once governed our days. Much as we do when we travel.  Routine goes out the window when we begin to travel. After a while, our days take on new patterns. While relaxing the timetable can bring a sense of freedom, I’ve learned completely unstructured days leave me feeling adrift. On the road and at home, Rich and I establish routines that give rhythm to our day. We set aside hours for working online: doing research, keeping up with emails, and (in my case) writing my blog posts. During this time, we give each other plenty of psychological space. Even when working elbow-to-elbow at the kitchen table of a tiny Airbnb, we rarely interrupt each other, knowing that having some private headspace is vital to our sanity. It takes a lot for one of us to violate this code. One of the few times it’s happened, during a long-ago emergency in Ohio, I didn’t respond well. I should have known Rich would have a good reason for bursting into my office, but I didn’t even look up from the screen as I snapped, “I don’t care if the house is on fire. I have to finish this.” “Okay,” he said. “I just thought you might want to know there’s a six-foot snake on our bed.”  Rich removing the snake from the pillowcase before releasing it into the wild. In the pandemonium that followed, the snake slithered into a heating vent, and eventually a policeman helped Rich grab the wily reptile and stuff it into a pillow case. As Rich and I drove off to release it into the wild, the pillow case started to move. I thought Rich was jiggling it in jest. Then the snake’s head shot up out of the opening, and it began biting him on the hand — so hard its fangs snapped off. Luckily it was just a harmless black rat snake. We kept the fangs in a glass jar for years to impress the neighborhood kids. OK, I know I must have had some reason for telling the snake story . . . Oh yes, coping strategies. Living in the present moment helps, as does establishing some kind of routine. My third suggestion is about acceptance. Take shortages, for instance. My supermarket is often completely out of toilet paper, no longer carries my favorite crackers, and sells only canned artichoke hearts too fibrous to chew. Small annoyances, I agree, but still.  No matter how often it happens, I always find it disconcerting to arrive at the paper products aisle of a major supermarket and see empty shelves. Big chain stores and online shopping have trained us to expect a vast array of options at low prices with a money-back guarantee. Traveling abroad, I’ve learned to choose from among a few off-brand products that are only very approximately what I want. The silver lining? Having fewer choices actually makes us happier, according to research by psychologist Barry Schwartz. Constantly seeking maximum satisfaction can turn people into discontented perfectionists, while those who accept the first available option that meets their criteria tend to be happier with their purchase. As disconcerting as it is to see near-empty shelves, snapping up one of three remaining rolls of paper towels is positively thrilling. We’re all struggling to reconstruct our disrupted lives while wondering about the future. Whenever I contemplate the long term effects of the pandemic, I remember a Buddhist lecturer who said that when the Dalai Lama was asked about the legacy of the French Revolution. he replied, “Oh, it’s much too soon to say.” Yes, we live in an age of profound uncertainty with unknown consequences. But then, doesn’t everyone? This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic, if possible with some of our sanity and sense of humor intact. Each week I provide tips, strategies, and reasons for hope. Sign up HERE to get free stories in your inbox each week. Feel free to share Three Ways Travel Prepares Us for Pandemic Survival with family and friends. https://www.enjoylivingabroad.com/my-blog/three-ways-travel-prepares-us-for-pandemic-suvival YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY  My digital nomad friends Lindsay and Ross have held online jobs and lived all over the world since 2008. After the earthquake last Saturday night, as soon as the couch stopped shaking, I turned to Rich and said, “So it’s true. Mother Earth really is trying to kill us.” It wasn’t Her best effort; a mere 4.2 on the Richter scale, just enough to startle. By the time I realized it might be wise to dive under the furniture, it was all over. The previous quake, which struck on December 31st — a little parting gift from our old pal, 2020 — was even weaker, but with the epicenter just a few miles away, that one bounced me like a trampoline. Ah, the joys of living in California.  Like all California kids, I grew up preparing for earthquakes. It’s been pretty wild around here lately, but with the state’s Covid numbers (finally!) dropping a bit and vaccines on the way (yes, they are!), there’s room for optimism. For months, those vaccines were like Bigfoot — the stuff of legend without any reliable sightings. Now a few people I know have received their shots, including someone who joined a high-priced concierge medical service to get one, and a veteran who's flying to a military base that's doing inoculations. “Do we have to up our game?” I say to Rich whenever we hear such stories. “Bribe or hustle our way into line?” I don’t mind waiting behind nursing home residents and essential workers but hate to be outdone by the rich and crafty.  Pharmacies are inundated with requests for information, tests, and vaccines they don't have. “I think things are about to get better,” Rich said yesterday, and sent me the NY Times story, “Biden’s Covid-19 Plan Is Maddeningly Obvious.” The real shocker, says the article, is that these no-brainer solutions weren’t in place months ago: “Loosen the restrictions on who can get vaccinated (and when). Set up many more sites where vaccinations can take place. Mobilize more medical personnel to deliver the vaccinations. And use the might of the federal government to increase the vaccine supply by manufacturing whatever is needed, whenever it is needed, to accelerate the effort.” Amen to all that! The plan calls for FEMA to set up vaccination sites in gyms, sports stadiums, community centers, and mobile units. “They’re evaluating how to eke out more doses from the existing supply — there is, for instance, a particular syringe that will get you six doses out of a given quantity of Pfizer’s vaccine rather than five, and they are looking at whether the Defense Production Act could accelerate production of that particular syringe and other, similarly useful goods.” Reading those plans gave me a first flicker of hope that we might actually be on the verge of moving past this phase of our lives into a — dare I say it? — post-pandemic world.  What will it be like the day we finally put away our masks for good? Photo by Getty Naturally everyone’s speculating madly about what the future will look like, and the only thing they all agree on is that we won't return to pre-Covid normal. For a start, many of the 100 million Americans now working from home will keep doing so in 2021, possibly forever. And that, my friends, is the sound of opportunity knocking. As many of my expat pals have learned, working remotely means you can live anywhere, moving on whenever you’re ready for a change of scenery. For those fed up with staring at the same four walls and the same old view out the window, that’s a heady idea. Just think about becoming a digital nomad, working remotely in another part of the US. Or even more excitingly, doing your job from abroad, which just got a lot easier thanks to new digital nomad visas designed to attract working visitors as soon as travel restrictions are lifted. “Portugal, as of February 1st, 2021 will take the most significant leap yet, with the islands of Madeira embracing nomads with their very own village,” observes travel writer Gilbert Ott. “Ponta Do Sol will become the first pilot project village aiming to create a symbiotic relationship between locals and digital nomads, who are actively being encouraged to visit.” Before you start downloading Portuguese language tapes, take a moment to consider some of the other places waiting with open arms. I’ve compiled a list (you’ll find it below), but before we get to that, let me fill you in on how it works. The digital nomad idea became practical around 2008, when advances in internet and cell phone services made it possible to interact seamlessly with clients and employers thousands of miles away. That’s when my friends Lindsay and Ross, Americans working in Seville, found online jobs through Craigslist and decided to make their home in the larger world. “We threw all the chips in and bet everything on this decision,” Ross told me. They reduced their entire worldly goods to two suitcases, a small roll-aboard, a backpack, Ross’s guitar, and their dog, Rocky. Strict travel protocols were developed; if one of them bought a t-shirt, they had to get rid of t-shirt; no extras allowed. Like most young couples, they lived in modest rented apartments and worked hard five days a week. But when they walked outside after hours, they were always someplace new and exciting. “It’s really not a question of why we do it,” said Lindsay. “It’s more a question of why doesn’t everyone do it?” This year we’re seeing another giant leap forward in the digital nomad lifestyle. Until now, most traveled under tourist visas, which usually limit the stay to 90 days and prohibit working. But now (drumroll, please!) more than a dozen countries are offering some version of digital nomad visas, which allow you to stay a year or more while you continue doing your job from, say, an apartment in Greece or beach house Costa Rica. The amount of paperwork varies considerably, as does the application fee, which can be a modest $100 or run as high as $2000 for an individual, $3000 for a family. In some cases, you may be asked to demonstrate you’re actually employed or a business owner, not just a vacationer looking for excellent wifi and other perks— such as the access to healthcare, telecom, utilities, and all the other benefits offered by Dubai. So what countries offer some version of the digital nomad visa? Barbados Bermuda Cayman Islands Costa Rica Czech Republic Dubai Estonia Germany Greece Mexico Norway Portugal Republic of Georgia Rich and I have visited most of these countries, and there's no question they can be a lot of fun. Sensibly, most countries won’t allow Americans to enter until we get our pandemic numbers under control. But hey, that just means you have sufficient time to consider whether the digital nomad lifestyle is for you. Not up for living abroad? If you’re working remotely, retired, or otherwise untethered to a specific geographic area, this may be the year to explore new horizons nearer home. A recent study showed that when you’re on the fence about a major life decision, choosing to make a change is overwhelming more satisfying than clinging to the status quo. Actress Goldie Hawn said, “We have to embrace obstacles to reach the next stage of joy.” I think we’ve all embraced more than our fair share of obstacles lately. Is it finally time to think about getting out there — whenever it's safe — and embracing a little joy?  Erge and Martin, our Airbnb hosts in Tallinn, Estonia, filled our time there with joy and laughter. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic and (if we're lucky) beginning the transition to a post-Covid world. Each week I provide tips, strategies, comfort food recipes, and reasons for hope. Sign up HERE to get free stories in your inbox each week. Feel free to share this Digital Nomad Visas post with family and friends. https://www.enjoylivingabroad.com/my-blog/working-remotely-why-not-do-it-overseas-with-one-of-the-new-digital-nomad-visas  Lenny was just a house pet until, like so many of us, he got into cooking during quarantine. OK, 2021, the hour of reckoning has come. Yes, already! You can't deny we performed all the proper rituals — red underwear, grapes, buckets of water out the door, 360 million glasses of champaign in the US alone. Frankly, we gave you the most enthusiastic welcome of any year in the history of time. What did we ask in return? Just a little relief from the chaos and madness of past twelve months. But no, you couldn’t resist the opportunity to outdo 2020. You just had to start off the very first week with an insurrection designed to derail American democracy. What’s next? No, don’t tell me. I’m not sure my nerves can take it. So much for my foolish notion that 2021 would be better than its predecessor. I was preparing to write this year off as a total washout (why wait until the last minute?) but then I paused to reflect on some inspiring stories that have already come out of it. Stories of those who are finding ways to stay engaged in the world in spite of everything. For instance, I’m still basking in the sheer delight of my latest discovery: a lizard (specifically a bearded dragon) who has published his own cookbook, Chef Lenny: Cooking for Humans. True story; I couldn’t make this stuff up. “It was my quarantine project,” says Valerie Musser, Lenny’s owner, ghost writer, and publicist. When her catering business was derailed by the pandemic, she began writing a long-postponed cookbook and amused herself posting Instagram photos of Lenny in a miniature chef’s hat she found on Etsy. “He actually loves wearing hats and posing for photos, so I started making miniature food for him to show off with.” Moreover, Lenny has a classic chef’s temperament. “He is very pretentious. His body language is kind of crazy, he wants what he wants, he’s very demanding and he’s kind of a snob about food, very fussy, so this project fits him very well.” Lenny isn’t the only unexpected new celebrity. Fans of fungi will be pleased to know the once-humble mushroom has had series of makeovers and is now popping up everywhere. Adidas’ line of “vegan footwear” includes sneakers made of “mushroom-based leather” derived from the fast-growing roots known as mycelium. A Stanford designer is growing mushrooms on a diet of sawdust and using their mycelium to make bricks that are said to be “stronger than concrete.” And never worry that demand will outstrip the supply, because a Dutch inventor has created a coffin that turns bodies into mushrooms. It takes just a single week to create a “living cocoon” by growing mycelium around a box-shaped frame with an open bottom. When the time comes, you just lay your loved one to rest inside, and he or she will spend the next few years decomposing gracefully back into the earth, adding nutrients to the soil. Not surprisingly, getting this product to market will require overcoming some serious legal hurdles and the creepiness factor. If only Tales from the Crypt was still around to serve as the sponsor. In the constellation of new superstars, perhaps the most astounding virtuoso is Secret, a young Australian shepherd who’s become an adept practitioner of doga, or dog yoga. When not mastering complex asanas (yoga poses), Secret enjoys spending time with his human, Mary Peters, painting, doing housework, and learning CPR. Another creature-human relationship that’s taken the quarantined world by storm is the heartwarming platonic romance between Craig Foster and a female octopus living in the kelp forest of South Africa’s Cape of Storms. “What Charlotte’s Web did in the popular imagination for the humble, much-maligned barn spider, My Octopus Teacher sets out to achieve for the eight-limbed mollusc of its title,” says Variety in a review titled “An Eight-Legged Freak Becomes a Friend in Netflix’s Gorgeous Hit Nature Doc.” The film is sensitive, intelligent, and mind-expanding, so naturally somebody had to do a goofy parody. Filmmakers rose to the challenge with My Kreepy Teacher, the story of a man bonding with his Kreepy Krauly-brand pool cleaner.  Can you tell which is the real octopus and which is the pool cleaner? With the possible exception of the dog Secret, relationships with members of other species (let alone inanimate objects like the Kreepy Krauly pool cleaner) are severely limited by physical, verbal, and social differences. Despite all its complications, we are hard wired to need human companionship. During a recent Zoom call, my sister Kate remarked that on top of everything else, we hardly ever get to meet new people these days. She’s right. Except for brief encounters with neighbors and sales clerks, I rarely speak to anyone who isn’t a relative or long-time friend. That got me thinking: How can we connect up — safely, online — with new people, preferably in a lively interactive format? One of the best ways is via Meetup, an online organizer started by New Yorkers in the wake of 9/11, when encounters with neighbors gave them a fresh appreciation of the value of human connection in dark times. It costs nothing to join; you just sign up with any group that looks interesting (like the drive-in movie group I belong to) and they send you notices of events. Nowadays everything is tailored to helping us through the pandemic, with categories such as Learn New Skills, Live Mindfully, Deepen Your Tech Knowledge, and Make Lasting Connections. There are also 3,700 board game groups and 2,500 card game groups where you can play with locals or people around the world. But what really caught my eye was Meetup’s 5,382 book clubs.  If none of these book clubs appeals, you can always check the website of your public library and local book stores, many of which host monthly online book discussions. It’s fun to think about joining one of the giants, such as the London Philosophy Club or Dharma Drink: the Hangout for Buddhists (& like minded) in New York, each of which has about 10,000 members. No doubt they break out into smaller discussion subgroups, but even so, I’d feel lost in a crowd that large. You can find smaller book clubs on Meetup or through your local public library or book store. Before joining any group, be sure to find out if they read the kind of stuff you actually like. Years ago I was flattered by an invitation to join a highbrow literary book club, where I floundered through pedantic discussions of classics I admired but didn’t enjoy one bit. As you can imagine, I hightailed it out of there as soon as possible and joined a different book club. We humans are social creatures. Our survival as individuals and as a species has always depended upon connection and cooperation. These days few of us are called upon to help the neighbors hunt a mastodon or raise a barn, but even when we’re simply partnering in a game of online Monopoly, we’re making a vital contribution to the community. Everyone needs a sense of support, the warmth of laughter, and some reassurance that we are not alone in this time of crisis. “Love and compassion,” says the Dalai Lama, “are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” That’s never been truer than in 2021. DEAR READERS I write these posts to contribute a little cheeriness to the general conversation, in hopes it will help us all get through these troubling times with a bit more grace and comfort. Please feel free to pass on the link to your family, friends, Zoom acquaintances, and book clubs. All are welcome here. https://www.enjoylivingabroad.com/my-blog/lets-not-give-up-on-2021-just-yet And before I close, I can't resist including one more small delight to brighten these dark days: an astonishing 3D animation from Le Petit Chef, a small country restaurant northeast of Paris. They project it onto your table while you’re waiting for dessert. Bon appétit! YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic while holding on to some shreds of our sanity and sense of humor, however weird things get. Sign up HERE to get free stories in your inbox each week.  Sheltering in place, many of us are finding solace in old-fashioned pastimes we have around the house. Photo by the Saint Paul Winter Carnival Puzzle Contest I no longer make New Year’s resolutions — which only 8% of people keep anyway — but this time around I’m making an exception. And I’m serious. No matter how desperate I am for something new to watch, I will not stream the movie Songbird. Haven’t heard of it? Here’s the premise: It’s the 213th week of pandemic lockdown from Covid-23. I know, right? It’s beginning to feel like that already. But wait, there’s more. A hundred and ten million people are dead, officials can test you remotely, and if you resist going to one of the squalid quarantine camps, they shoot you on sight. Being an optimist, I watched the trailer and said to Rich, “See? We don’t have it so bad!” Rotten Tomatoes gave Songbird a single star and called it “an appalling melange of insipid disaster drama and implausible romance with a bit of dystopian satire thrown in. This is a crass cash-in meant to prey on our pandemic anxieties, not grapple with them.” Yikes! So I’ve already found one thing to make me happier in 2021: avoiding Songbird. Whew! I feel I’m making progress already and we’re only a week into the year. I’m also determined to avoid impulse-buying unnecessary stuff — a pastime that gave 2020 yet another nickname: The Year of Buyer’s Remorse. Apparently panic-stockpiling toilet paper was merely the warm up; many people are now stuck with clothes they can’t wear, electronics they don’t need, even houses they can’t stand.  At a time when thousands of businesses are cutting back and going under, Amazon expanded its work force to more than 1 million people to meet the demand for online shopping. Paula Gillespie, for instance, was aghast when her husband surprised her with a camper. “The thing is too big for his truck and dangerous, and I absolutely refuse to go anywhere with it due to the dangers of it,” she said. The camper now sits idle near the fishing boat her husband bought, despite the fact they live nowhere near a boat-worthy body of water. Maureen Rashidifard’s pandemic splurges include a resistance-training apparatus, a sewing machine, a TV with a DVD player, roller skates, and a program designed to teach her kids every language on the planet. So far, nobody in the family has buffed up or learned Mandarin. As for the skates, “I fell so hard that my hat flew off my head,” she said. “I had to walk home in my socks carrying my skates, and I haven’t touched them since.”  Shopping releases dopamine, the neurotransmitter which controls pleasure inside the human brain. The pleasure is stronger during the anticipation phase than it is when you actually receive your purchase. One of the hottest commodities? Puppies, especially the easy-care, ultra-adorable breeds that make you want to spend the rest of the pandemic snuggling on the couch with your new best friend. Sales of goldendoodles — a mix of good-natured golden retriever and low-shedding poodle — are reportedly up 700%, despite the fact that top breeders charge $4000 a pup. City folks reluctant to hit the streets on a schedule suitable for a puppy’s bladder have generated a 200% rise in the demand for doggie diapers. Rich and I have resisted impulse-buying any pets, as we know it’s impractical given our plans to return to Spain when all the stars finally align. But I have to admit feeling puppy envy when I talk to my sister Kate, who recently adopted a miniature Australian shepherd. It’s her second of the breed, and while the first was a mild-mannered Clark Kent-type, this one’s a superdog called Bear who’s bursting with energy and creative ideas for enlivening lockdown.  “Why no, Dad, I haven’t seen your avocado toast. Why do you ask?” Photo by Kate Harding Speaking of food, another thing I’ll be avoiding is restaurant dining. Luckily I love to cook, especially on Sundays. In Spain, that's when families gather for late, long, leisurely lunches, and early in the pandemic, Rich and I decided to maintain this satisfying European tradition. We devote Sundays to rest and relaxation (no writing posts, jumping on the stair stepper, or even taking long hikes) so we have plenty of time to experiment with new dishes. I find I do my best work to Dean Martin singing “That’s Amore,” “Volare,” and “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” (which I’ve nominated for the pandemic’s theme song). Thanks to Dean, I was inspired to kick off 2021 with an Italian dish: Potato and White Bean Puttanesca Soup.  This easy, heartwarming dish [see recipe here] is enlivened by a topping of capers, Kalamata olives, and fresh parsley. The recipe, now enshrined in our permanent collection, is the first — and apparently last — to be clipped from an actual copy of the NY Times. A month ago we subscribed to the Sunday edition, seeking a pastime that had the novelty of not including a screen. Week after week we received a flurry of apologies instead of the paper. Only once did a copy materialize at the end of our driveway; I can only assume there was a substitute delivery person who didn’t get the memo about the circulation department's mysterious vendetta against us. We're now resigned to the fact that subscribing to the Times is yet another activity we are destined to forego this year. Fortunately, we found an alternative pastime in the latest craze: jigsaw puzzles. Sales are booming during lockdown. “The surge in demand,” CNBC reported, “is comparable to demand during the Great Depression, according to one puzzle historian.” So puzzle historians are a thing now? Who knew? Most of the time, I find puzzles soothing and absorbing. Only rarely do I fling up my hands, exclaiming, “This one’s incomplete! Defective! There is no corner piece with a dog’s — oh wait, here it is.” Afterwards, disassembly requires the kind of spiritual strength Buddhist monks display in destroying their sand mandalas immediately upon completion. “You know the cabin puzzle we just completed?” Rich remarked at breakfast this morning. “I just saw it on Etsy, assembled and framed, for $400.” “Seriously? People buy one and — what? Pretend they did it themselves?” Hmmm, I thought. This could be a great little cottage industry for us. But then I recalled the article “How to be Happier in 2021: Toss Out Your Usual List of New Year’s Resolutions, Says Study.” Scientists pointed out that most resolutions are essentially selfish (get skinnier, richer, more productive); their research showed happiness most often arrives as a byproduct of helping others. Evidently Rich was thinking along the same lines. “I know!” he said. “When we finish, we’ll disassemble the puzzles and send them to friends as a surprise gift. Everyone’s looking for cheerful pastimes these days.” Genius! So in addition to not watching Songbird, buying skates, adopting a puppy, or reading the NY Times in hard copy, we’re won’t be hoarding puzzles. Instead, we’ll set them free to entertain other families who need a break from screen time, politics, and pandemic headlines. The payoff will be a feel-good moment each time we drop one off at the post office. We’ll know that what we’re sending forth is not just a puzzle, but a message of comfort and fellowship in dark times. Now that’s a New Year’s resolution I can get behind. What are you hoping to avoid in 2021? What new pastimes are you embracing? Please let me know in the comments section below. [See Potato and White Bean Puttanesca Soup recipe here] YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic while holding on to some shreds of our sanity and sense of humor, however weird things get. Sign up HERE to get free stories in your inbox each week.  Who could have predicted we'd be spending our 34th wedding anniversary sheltering in place during a pandemic? We dressed up, drank champagne, danced, and talked about happiness. In a non-pandemic year (remember those?), I often skip New Year’s Eve. By the time I’ve partied my way through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and our wedding anniversary (December 27th, 34 years ago), I’m usually longing for a night in with my feet up. But not this year. I am staying vigilant until the very last second of 2020. If this year has some sneaky surprise horror ending planned, at least it won’t catch me unawares. And even if 2020 meekly lies down in its coffin, I want to bear witness as the universe drives a stake through its heart and slams the lid on it forever. Then I intend to dance on its grave singing “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.” Satisfying as all that may be, the main purpose of New Year’s Eve is to arrange for better luck in the year ahead. It’s the time to lay down some ground rules and let 2021 know, right from the start, that we expect better treatment than we had from its predecessor. Fortunately, public spirited citizens have spent thousands of years working out ways to make the future rosier — and passed their wisdom on to us. For years I’ve followed three luck-enhancing strategies and am researching others to see if I can up my game.  In Spain and Italy, wearing red undergarments on New Year's Eve is said to bring good luck, especially in your love life. Naturally everybody wants to get in on that! When Rich and I moved to Spain, we soon learned that absolutely everyone wears their lucky bragas rojas (red undergarments) on New Year’s Eve. In the excitement of last year’s celebrations I forgot to put mine on and have worried ever since that 2020 was entirely my fault. If so, sorry about that, folks! I’ve certainly learned my lesson. I’m hoping you, my readers, will help balance the cosmic scales by donning your own bragas rojas on December 31st. Don’t worry, you’re not expected to reveal the jolly undies to anybody. Unless you happen to live in the tiny town of La Font de la Figuera near Valencia, where it’s customary to strip down to your scarlets and run through streets lined with cheering neighbors. I was considering introducing this custom here in San Anselmo, California, but Rich — who is usually game for any lark — pointed out that spending New Year’s Eve in jail for indecent exposure would hardly start the year off on the right foot.  Kids, don't try this unless you happen to live in La Font de la Figuera, Spain. Another Spanish custom I love is las doce uvas de la buena suerte, the twelve grapes of good luck. As the clock strikes midnight, you pop a grape into your mouth at each chime of the clock. Insider tip: grapes are remarkably hard to swallow that fast, so peel them, buy very small ones, or get the canned variety soaked in juice. And whatever you do, swallow all twelve. “I was in England one year,” a Spanish friend told me. “And dropped one of the grapes in a public square. It rolled away and I raced after it, grabbed it, and ate it, to the horror of my friends. But hey, who cares about hygiene when your luck is at stake?” I was aghast when I first heard this story, but after 2020, I see her point.  The store-bought grapes are a lot easier to swallow in time with the clock chiming midnight. Washing them down with champagne helps, too. As soon as I finish my grapes, I’ll be tossing a bucket of water out the front door. This satisfying custom, which originated in Mexico, Cuba, or Puerto Rico (depending on whose account you believe), evicts any negative energy that might be lingering about the house. Ideally you carry the bucket from room to room to collect all the bad juju, then you pitch the water out a window or the front door. For extra good luck avoid dumping it on any passing pets or pedestrians.  New Year's in Montevideo, Uruguay. Photo by El Mundo Lately I’ve been on the lookout for other good-luck rituals. But like running down San Anselmo Avenue in my underwear, few seem really practical. For instance, there’s “first footer,” popular in Great Britain and elsewhere, which claims it’s auspicious to have a dark-haired male as your first visitor in the new year. Now that I’m sheltering in place, who am I going to get — the UPS guy? The Danes banish evil spirits by smashing old plates against the front doors of friends and relatives; the bigger your pile of crockery shards, the more fortune will smile on you. But somehow I don’t feel my neighbors would take this in the warm-hearted, fun-loving spirit intended. Nor would they (or the hyper-vigilant fire department two blocks away) appreciate me torching effigies of my enemies in the back yard, as is common in Ecuador and Panama. A friend of mine came up with a good alternative: he bought a piñata of a politician who will soon be leaving office, cut off its head, beat it with a stick, and drove his car over it. Twice. Will that bring him luck? Who knows? But he said it felt terrific at the time. Every country and culture has its own traditions, and while we can scoff at them as superstition and tomfoolery, I believe it’s fun (and wise) to do our bit to entice Lady Luck back into our lives. We’ve certainly missed her this past year. What will 2021 look like? Speculation ranges from more of the same (which will certainly be true for a while) or a return to life as we once knew it (a lovely fantasy). The truth is, the world has changed too much to bounce back to the old normal, and so have we. And that’s not all bad; some parts of 2020 are worth carrying forward. (Yes, they are!) For instance, many of us have found inner strength, resilience, and creativity we never knew we had. Just look at all the people who have learned how to bake sourdough bread (yes, I’m thinking of you, Phil), play the ukulele (I know at least three), or master the intricacies of Zoom (too many of you to count). Rich is taking an online course called The Science of Happiness offered by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley; it’s free if you don’t want a diploma. You’ll be hearing a lot more about it when he finishes the course, but asked what he’s learned so far he said, “Happiness isn’t about you; it’s much larger than that. It’s about social connections, kindness, and community. You can’t pursue happiness, but when you pursue opportunities to serve others, happiness is often a by-product.” As one recent study discovered, “Helping others can help you feel better during the pandemic.” This video gives an idea what the happiness course is about. Even if we pull out all the stops with grapes, buckets of water, and red undies, the year ahead is filled with uncertainties. Have we learned the survival lessons that will enable us to make good decisions (and good sourdough) next year? Can the vaccines vanquish this nasty virus? Will the happiness course make Rich happier? I can’t answer those questions, but I can tell you one thing for sure. It is going to feel wonderful to say, “Adios 2020!”  This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic while holding on to some shreds of our sanity and sense of humor, however weird things get. Sign up HERE to get free stories in your inbox each week. YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY  On a recent White Christmas-themed date night, Rich and I added snowflakes to the windows, drank eggnog, and constructed tin foil hats for an upcoming Festivus Zoom gathering. Yes, even in 2020 we're still party animals. When Ernest Hemmingway was writing A Farewell to Arms, he asked F. Scott Fitzgerald to critique the manuscript. Fitzgerald’s thoughtful, nuanced analysis ran for ten pages and suggested changing the ending. Hemingway’s reply? A succinct, “Kiss my ass.” This story appeared in my horoscope this week, followed by, “I suggest a different approach for you, Libra. In my view, now is a good time to solicit feedback and mirroring from trusted allies. What do they think about the current state of your life and work?” So now’s your chance, trusted allies. If there’s anything you’d like me to write more about in this blog (comfort food recipes, pandemic survival tips, Rich wielding power tools and duct tape) or discuss less (see previous list), please let me know in the comments section below. Unlike Hemingway, I actually like suggestions. Sometimes I even follow them.  Hemingway loved cats for their "absolute emotional honesty" and always shared with his felines the sugar mouse from his Christmas stocking. Apparently this one liked wine with her mouse. OK, now that I’ve dealt with my astrological karma, let me ask you another question: Have you seen the headlines announcing that due to Covid-19 “Christmas is Cancelled”? The fringe media even calls Dr. Fauci “the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” To these scurrilous statements I say, “Poppycock, hogwash, and codswallop!” The fact is, nobody can steal or cancel a holiday. Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, pagan Yule, Hogmanay, and every other red-letter day on the calendar will roll around precisely on schedule, just as surely as the shortest day of the year will show up on December 21st, no matter what. The only thing changing is how we celebrate our holidays. But then, doesn’t it always? In prehistoric times, the shortest, darkest, coldest days of the year found our ancestors huddling together around a flame to keep alive the hope of surviving to see another spring. By Roman times, they’d figured out that when the night was dark and full of terrors, alcohol helped, and lo! the drunken revels known as Bacchanalia were born. “Morality and restraint were politely shown the back door, schools were closed, no criminals were punished,” reports the Independent. “Slaves were allowed to swap places with their masters, and one was elected king for the duration of the festival. The wealthy distributed gifts to the poor.” If you’ve ever attended an office holiday party, you can probably relate to the vibe.  Nobody parties like the ancient Romans. In the old Norse tradition, a massive Yule log was dragged into the fireplace, often with one end sticking out into the room; as it burned, you kept shoving it further in. You had to light it using a scrap of last year's log, and if it didn't catch on the first try or went out during the next twelve days, bad luck was sure to follow. Anyone whose fire-lit shadow appeared to be headless knew they had a date with the grim reaper. Many restless ghosts roamed the earth during the longest nights of the year, giving rise to Dickens’ famous story, A Christmas Carol, and the legend of Santa Claus. The fat man in the red suit was originally Saint Nicholas, who wanted to help three impoverished girls at risk of being forced into prostitution. He dropped three gold coins down the chimney, where they landed in the girls’ stockings drying on the hearth.  St. Nicholas was a 4th century bishop of the Eastern Orthodox Church and a man of color; his sidekick was an African Muslim. By the 1870s he was depicted as a white guy, and American cartoonist Thomas Nast gave him the red suit (long before he became a mascot for the Coca-Cola company in the 1920s). Photo: The Temple Gallery My point is: the holidays we celebrate, and the shape those celebrations take, are constantly evolving. If you have any doubt about that, just look at the carols we're singing this year. Some of the language and images in that song hark back more to the Bacchanalian revels than to the sanitized version of the holidays familiar to us from Hallmark cards and Hollywood movies. And that’s appropriate; we live in edgier times. But one thing hasn’t changed: the need to reach out to family and friends, sharing comfort and joy, if only through the magic of Zoom. Rich and I spend a lot of time Zooming these days. Last night we gathered online with Rich’s old Navy buddies to celebrate Festivus. I always thought this holiday was invented by the staff of Seinfeld, but I’ve now learned it was Readers Digest editor Daniel O’Keefe who dreamed it up in 1966 to commemorate his first date with his wife. Thirty years later his son, a writer on Sinefeld, gave the world “Festivus for the rest of us.” In addition to the traditional aluminum pole, feats of strength, and airing of grievances, our celebration included donning festive hats. My Festivus grievances were ready, too. A few days ago, we Zoomed with American friends in New Zealand, who told us how the Kiwis approached the pandemic. Within a month of the first reported Covid case in the country, all borders, ports, and airports were closed, and by March 25 there was a strict nationwide lockdown. Cases dwindled, restrictions were eased, and by June 8 life returned to normal except for border controls. That’s right, the pandemic has been over for six months in New Zealand. “We live normally,” our pals explained. “And except for the tourist sector, the economy has completely rebounded.” In that nation of 4,822,233 people, there have been 2096 cases of Covid and 25 deaths. At first I was in awe, and then the outrage hit me. Stopping Covid in its tracks was no pipe dream; New Zealand accomplished it six months ago. Here in America, we had the same scientific data, and far greater resources at our disposal; what we lacked was the political will. By May 27 we’d lost 100,000 people to the virus; just this Monday the death toll passed 300,000, and still there’s no coherent national plan. We’ve suffered 200,000 needless, preventable coronavirus deaths, and another American dies of the virus every 36 seconds, when we could — should! — all be living in a post-pandemic society with a healthy economy.  Remember when we could do this? If we were New Zealanders, we'd have spent the last six months living a normal, Covid-free life. Photo by New Zealand Trails. “You might want to tone down your grievance a bit during the Festivus Zoom call,” Rich warned me, after I’d ranted on about this for days. “Don’t want to frighten the horses.” He was right. I put on my tin foil Santa hat, took a few deep breaths, and counted my blessings. Like the debt of gratitude we owe past generations. Our primitive ancestors taught us to keep the flame of hope burning through the longest nights. The Romans showed us how to raise a glass instead of cursing the darkness. And Santa may have stopped dropping gold coins in our stockings, but he does stuff them with chocolate, which helps enormously. One of my favorite blessings? The community of my readers. You guys make me laugh, cry, think, and find strength to go on. Your thoughtful comments help me shape the direction of this blog (so send feedback below). You’ll no doubt be too busy with Bacchanalian revels to do much reading, so I won't be posting next week. Rich joins me in wishing you all a splendiferous [insert name of holiday here] as we stagger to the end (yay!) of 2020 (whew!).  OK, this may be taking PPE a bit too far. Photo by Getty Images ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS, MY FRIENDS! STAY SAFE, BE MERRY, AND HOPE 2021 IS A BETTER YEAR (ADMITTEDLY, A LOW BAR). This post is part of my ongoing series of articles on surviving the pandemic while holding on to some shreds of our sanity and sense of humor, however weird things get. Sign up HERE to get free stories in your inbox each week. |
 Karen McCann
Welcome!
I'm an American travel writer based in Spain and currently living in California. As we journey through the pandemic together, my blog provides a regular supply of survival tips, comfort food recipes, and the wry humor we all need to lighten our hearts on dark days. I think of my blog as an ongoing conversation, so please join in and leave comments at the end of my posts. Sign up below to get updates when I publish anything new. 
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