This post felt so personal for you but as well as for me and many others. I grew up as a military kid traveling every two years to somewhere new, sometimes in the US, sometimes in lands foreign. When my father retired in Texas, I never felt at home there, and as time passed and I grew older, I realized I was lucky enough to go somewhere else. And it sure as hell wasnt going to be in the USA during this crazy period. We won’t be staying forever in Portugal as much as we love it—taxes will kill us. But we’ve already started thinking of our next stop. Will it be back to the USA to somewhere reasonably sane like another writer mentioned (Santa Fe) or maybe we will find ourselves lucky enough to obtain an EU passport and go where there are still no guns and reasonable people? Who knows, but I think we are always evolving and changing and for right now, we are so happy we made the decision to leave the USA and come to this beautiful land and get to know the wonderful people and culture. Thank you for generously sharing your talent of expression with us.
Thanks for sharing your thought processes LaDonna. As someone who also has a school-aged child and left the U.S. for a different, and hopefully better, life in Portugal, I can relate to much of it. I have moved quite bit in my life and have never really thought of it as running from something so much as a just one chapter ending and it being time to start the next. I moved every few years as a child and at the time I was envious of people who had roots and lifelong childhood homes. But now as an adult I have replicated the same patterns as it feels totally normal and natural to me. Though I do hope we stay put for a while now.
Wow. Time after time, you simply nail IT, whatever the subject may be. Made me think, made me realize, made me know something. I, also an immigrant in Portugal, grew up with parents who left traditional lives/places after WW2 and ventured out into international business in the late '40's. They were adventurous, our family grew up moving, many many times. And now I'm in Portugal, having lived "all over the place", my two kids (men, now, actually!) live twelve time-zones apart from each other, same distance either way around the world. We (my parents before me and my kids now) are emigrants/immigrants, seemingly peripatetic by up-bringing, I guess. The pull of running-towards vs the push of running-from, you have a way of putting it SO well. Thank you for once again saying the things that are hard to verbalize for most of us...
Yours is I think a classic emigrant story: running TO hope and possibility. I think humans have always done this, actually. Some humans moved in a circuit (summer encampments, winter ones), others migrated long distances. What I am curious about, and what has kept me from leaving for good: will you be able to become enmeshed in the culture of the place you have moved to? Will you ever truly feel a part of that culture, or always be a foreigner looking on? the immigrant working the low-wage job because the language difference is too great, the education won't transfer, but the child can acculturate and goes on to become a professional in the new country, marry into that culture, so on.
I'm different from you in that, though there are migratory patterns in my family's story, I was raised where my father and HIS father were raised. I married a man who lived his entire life within 100 miles of where he was born. I do have roots and I feel their pull. Nevertheless I understand all the reasons you and your family chose to leave. I applaud your bravery in that. But still I wonder. How will you assimilate?
I don't think I will assimilate here, not totally. Not for lack of trying. I will learn the language--I am learning the language, and my kid attends the local public school, and I talk to my neighbors and don't limit my friendships/interactions to the bubble of other English-speaking immigrants. And yet, I am quite sure that I will never wholly belong here. I will certainly never be Portuguese. I will always, in some way, be a foreigner here. But that's ok with me. I wrote this about belonging two years ago, and it still holds true today: https://wordsbyladonna.substack.com/p/belonging-isnt-the-most-important
I’ve been offline and I realized I had thrown the baby out with the bath water. The digital detox was good in so many ways, but there truly are so many wonderful things about this magical electric world here online. You are one of those. I always find that you speak my truth so eloquently. It took quite a bit to convince my husband to leave the Midwest, where his parents and their parents were raised. I kept saying a version of, “why live the length of your days in the place where you were born simply because that’s the place where you were born?”
I was a military brat and I loved the new adventure of a one- way ticket. We are coming up on our Californiversary in two weeks and I still feel so fortunate every day when I look out at the mountains and mesa and see the sparkle of the Pacific. It still feels like a happy dream. I haven’t truly sorted out how I will navigate the online world, and find that I just don’t have the energy yet for social media (and this election year is likely not the time to do my toe back in) but I know that making your wonderful writing part of my digital diet is an essential. Your writing feels like home.
It's lovely to hear from you again, I have missed you! I am so delighted and honored that my writing makes the cut on your list of essentials. And telling me that my writing feels like home? Woah. Wow. That is a top shelf compliment. Thank you.
I came across your ‘meditation’ through Medium. I am Australian and currently roaming the eastern coastline of this continent.
Your journey resonated and caused me to pause, again, and reconsider.
Born here but educated across four continents I eventually returned to Melbourne at 17 - and thought I’d settled. Thirty years later I found myself in South East Asia where I remained for the better part of my working life.
Now retired I’m exploring this vast continent.
I loved your summary of the conflicted present in the USA and your references to First Nations people and their attachment to country. As you may be aware we have a conflict of our own in regards to past and regrettably present treatment of our indigenous folk.
I have been to Portugal albeit as an 8 year old camper. The circle continues…
Hi and welcome. I love that you're exploring the Australian continent. I have been there a few times, but only explored very small portions of the whole. All the best on your journey.
Nicely written as always. I am a Central American immigrant from the Bay Area where I lived 40+ years. I never felt so disappointed in USA and I feel like I lost another country. However, my American husband is not truly happy in Portugal so we are here on a long sabbatical. I love Portugal but I don't think I will truly feel rooted here either. I thought I would adapt as I did when I was young to USA but it is much harder later in life. At this point we are still "testing" Portugal but your blog is poignant as usual with feelings many of us have or will have in the future. I am keeping my options open and going with the flow for now. I feel a connection with Portugal that brings me back to my youth since the culture here is basically same as in Latin America. the Portuguese are welcoming, generous, kind people who have won my heart.
I was thinking today that I have had three periods during my life of almost 70 years when I was truly happy.
Firstly when I escaped from the family home where I never fitted in. University opened my eyes and heart to a better way forward.
Secondly, in the few years after my marriage (at 41) before our cosy family of four started to implode.
Finally, the last five years in Portugal. When my husband and I moved here in 2015 we chose the wrong area and were beset by personal issues. Now we love where we live and have learned to accept what we cannot change. We are lucky enough to be financially comfortable and are enjoying travelling a couple of times a year. However, I'm grateful for every moment and realise that things may not always remain so good.
This resonates so much. Prior to our most relocation (Seattle to Denmark), we had accumulated over 30 moves (from age 18 on) between the two of us. Our son, just now 9, has never been in a place longer than two years. But here we are, moving again...and back to the U.S. at that. Your post is a mix of things I've just heard or read..."They paved paradise..." and "Demon Copperhead".
Living in a place where buildings are older than our country makes me wonder as well: where is that sense of place? Will I/we ever have it? And do I really want it. There's so much to be said for friends and family (one of the main reasons we are returning is an elder who is likely in their last years)...but also, I find myself grateful at times, that it's so easy to cut loose and move on.
i so respect your courage...for all the moves. i love your writing and sharing. you followed a similar path that i took. first step to a university that was close to home, then to the big city (nyc) and finally, after 10 years, to the west coast, la, where i stayed for 47 years!. i have to admit i was running from as much as to. but the choices were good ones. and finally, after spending 2 months exploring portugal, and finding very comforting areas to settle, i/we decided that it was just too big a leap for us, in our 70's. we moved on...but to the spaciousness of santa fe, which has enough of a european history (albeit cruel) to fulfill my european wanderlust. hopefully planning to spend 2-3 months each year traveling again soon.
Each of your words today speaks to my experience Ladonna. The version on this end was "I will die in San Francisco". Bowing in gratitude from the central coast of Portugal.
Isn't it? It's in Nazaré, up on the cliff overlooking the big waves and the North Beach. I love it. Here's the story behind the sculpture: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/veado
Thank you! Your story and family history matches mine fairly closely. Born, Brooklyn, raised, Miami, (family stayed in South. Florida) medical school, Cleveland, then 27 years in Virginia. Grandparents from Russia (we were always told) but likely Romania, but ???? Other side, great grandparents, Austria for sure. Also ran TO something more comfortable in Portugal.
I’m glad my wife showed me your article. By the way, her family is German going back to 1642!
This post felt so personal for you but as well as for me and many others. I grew up as a military kid traveling every two years to somewhere new, sometimes in the US, sometimes in lands foreign. When my father retired in Texas, I never felt at home there, and as time passed and I grew older, I realized I was lucky enough to go somewhere else. And it sure as hell wasnt going to be in the USA during this crazy period. We won’t be staying forever in Portugal as much as we love it—taxes will kill us. But we’ve already started thinking of our next stop. Will it be back to the USA to somewhere reasonably sane like another writer mentioned (Santa Fe) or maybe we will find ourselves lucky enough to obtain an EU passport and go where there are still no guns and reasonable people? Who knows, but I think we are always evolving and changing and for right now, we are so happy we made the decision to leave the USA and come to this beautiful land and get to know the wonderful people and culture. Thank you for generously sharing your talent of expression with us.
Thanks for sharing your thought processes LaDonna. As someone who also has a school-aged child and left the U.S. for a different, and hopefully better, life in Portugal, I can relate to much of it. I have moved quite bit in my life and have never really thought of it as running from something so much as a just one chapter ending and it being time to start the next. I moved every few years as a child and at the time I was envious of people who had roots and lifelong childhood homes. But now as an adult I have replicated the same patterns as it feels totally normal and natural to me. Though I do hope we stay put for a while now.
Wow. Time after time, you simply nail IT, whatever the subject may be. Made me think, made me realize, made me know something. I, also an immigrant in Portugal, grew up with parents who left traditional lives/places after WW2 and ventured out into international business in the late '40's. They were adventurous, our family grew up moving, many many times. And now I'm in Portugal, having lived "all over the place", my two kids (men, now, actually!) live twelve time-zones apart from each other, same distance either way around the world. We (my parents before me and my kids now) are emigrants/immigrants, seemingly peripatetic by up-bringing, I guess. The pull of running-towards vs the push of running-from, you have a way of putting it SO well. Thank you for once again saying the things that are hard to verbalize for most of us...
Yours is I think a classic emigrant story: running TO hope and possibility. I think humans have always done this, actually. Some humans moved in a circuit (summer encampments, winter ones), others migrated long distances. What I am curious about, and what has kept me from leaving for good: will you be able to become enmeshed in the culture of the place you have moved to? Will you ever truly feel a part of that culture, or always be a foreigner looking on? the immigrant working the low-wage job because the language difference is too great, the education won't transfer, but the child can acculturate and goes on to become a professional in the new country, marry into that culture, so on.
I'm different from you in that, though there are migratory patterns in my family's story, I was raised where my father and HIS father were raised. I married a man who lived his entire life within 100 miles of where he was born. I do have roots and I feel their pull. Nevertheless I understand all the reasons you and your family chose to leave. I applaud your bravery in that. But still I wonder. How will you assimilate?
I don't think I will assimilate here, not totally. Not for lack of trying. I will learn the language--I am learning the language, and my kid attends the local public school, and I talk to my neighbors and don't limit my friendships/interactions to the bubble of other English-speaking immigrants. And yet, I am quite sure that I will never wholly belong here. I will certainly never be Portuguese. I will always, in some way, be a foreigner here. But that's ok with me. I wrote this about belonging two years ago, and it still holds true today: https://wordsbyladonna.substack.com/p/belonging-isnt-the-most-important
I’ve been offline and I realized I had thrown the baby out with the bath water. The digital detox was good in so many ways, but there truly are so many wonderful things about this magical electric world here online. You are one of those. I always find that you speak my truth so eloquently. It took quite a bit to convince my husband to leave the Midwest, where his parents and their parents were raised. I kept saying a version of, “why live the length of your days in the place where you were born simply because that’s the place where you were born?”
I was a military brat and I loved the new adventure of a one- way ticket. We are coming up on our Californiversary in two weeks and I still feel so fortunate every day when I look out at the mountains and mesa and see the sparkle of the Pacific. It still feels like a happy dream. I haven’t truly sorted out how I will navigate the online world, and find that I just don’t have the energy yet for social media (and this election year is likely not the time to do my toe back in) but I know that making your wonderful writing part of my digital diet is an essential. Your writing feels like home.
It's lovely to hear from you again, I have missed you! I am so delighted and honored that my writing makes the cut on your list of essentials. And telling me that my writing feels like home? Woah. Wow. That is a top shelf compliment. Thank you.
I came across your ‘meditation’ through Medium. I am Australian and currently roaming the eastern coastline of this continent.
Your journey resonated and caused me to pause, again, and reconsider.
Born here but educated across four continents I eventually returned to Melbourne at 17 - and thought I’d settled. Thirty years later I found myself in South East Asia where I remained for the better part of my working life.
Now retired I’m exploring this vast continent.
I loved your summary of the conflicted present in the USA and your references to First Nations people and their attachment to country. As you may be aware we have a conflict of our own in regards to past and regrettably present treatment of our indigenous folk.
I have been to Portugal albeit as an 8 year old camper. The circle continues…
Hi and welcome. I love that you're exploring the Australian continent. I have been there a few times, but only explored very small portions of the whole. All the best on your journey.
Nicely written as always. I am a Central American immigrant from the Bay Area where I lived 40+ years. I never felt so disappointed in USA and I feel like I lost another country. However, my American husband is not truly happy in Portugal so we are here on a long sabbatical. I love Portugal but I don't think I will truly feel rooted here either. I thought I would adapt as I did when I was young to USA but it is much harder later in life. At this point we are still "testing" Portugal but your blog is poignant as usual with feelings many of us have or will have in the future. I am keeping my options open and going with the flow for now. I feel a connection with Portugal that brings me back to my youth since the culture here is basically same as in Latin America. the Portuguese are welcoming, generous, kind people who have won my heart.
I can identify with the idea of running to.
I was thinking today that I have had three periods during my life of almost 70 years when I was truly happy.
Firstly when I escaped from the family home where I never fitted in. University opened my eyes and heart to a better way forward.
Secondly, in the few years after my marriage (at 41) before our cosy family of four started to implode.
Finally, the last five years in Portugal. When my husband and I moved here in 2015 we chose the wrong area and were beset by personal issues. Now we love where we live and have learned to accept what we cannot change. We are lucky enough to be financially comfortable and are enjoying travelling a couple of times a year. However, I'm grateful for every moment and realise that things may not always remain so good.
This resonates so much. Prior to our most relocation (Seattle to Denmark), we had accumulated over 30 moves (from age 18 on) between the two of us. Our son, just now 9, has never been in a place longer than two years. But here we are, moving again...and back to the U.S. at that. Your post is a mix of things I've just heard or read..."They paved paradise..." and "Demon Copperhead".
Living in a place where buildings are older than our country makes me wonder as well: where is that sense of place? Will I/we ever have it? And do I really want it. There's so much to be said for friends and family (one of the main reasons we are returning is an elder who is likely in their last years)...but also, I find myself grateful at times, that it's so easy to cut loose and move on.
i so respect your courage...for all the moves. i love your writing and sharing. you followed a similar path that i took. first step to a university that was close to home, then to the big city (nyc) and finally, after 10 years, to the west coast, la, where i stayed for 47 years!. i have to admit i was running from as much as to. but the choices were good ones. and finally, after spending 2 months exploring portugal, and finding very comforting areas to settle, i/we decided that it was just too big a leap for us, in our 70's. we moved on...but to the spaciousness of santa fe, which has enough of a european history (albeit cruel) to fulfill my european wanderlust. hopefully planning to spend 2-3 months each year traveling again soon.
Another thought provoking an superbly written post. Thank you for sharing!
Each of your words today speaks to my experience Ladonna. The version on this end was "I will die in San Francisco". Bowing in gratitude from the central coast of Portugal.
Oh, I said that very thing too! And I truly believed it. Yet here we both are.
Also what is this deer head statue? It’s amazing.
Isn't it? It's in Nazaré, up on the cliff overlooking the big waves and the North Beach. I love it. Here's the story behind the sculpture: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/veado
Thank you! Your story and family history matches mine fairly closely. Born, Brooklyn, raised, Miami, (family stayed in South. Florida) medical school, Cleveland, then 27 years in Virginia. Grandparents from Russia (we were always told) but likely Romania, but ???? Other side, great grandparents, Austria for sure. Also ran TO something more comfortable in Portugal.
I’m glad my wife showed me your article. By the way, her family is German going back to 1642!
Thanks
Rob Feldman