Why I'm emigrating.

Every day I stay in the US I see more reasons to emigrate, particularly among the Craiglist discussions I participate in. Today's discussion of interest regarded vacations and how few American even have passports or have ever traveled outside the country. When I graduated from college, it was pretty normal for college graduates to take a summer trip to Europe after graduation. Of course, only 20% of American ever graduate from college. I think the college part is significant. I always advise kids to go away to college and live in the dorm. There is just so much to learn outside what is taught in the classes of any college. For many people, it's the first time they meet people who challenge the values they were raised with just by being. For example, I was raised by very strict anti-alcohol parents. I grew up knowing where I would go to college, a church-related school. And I arrived there thinking maybe 5% of people drank any alcoholic beverages and those were all bad people. Well, I think I found out the first week that that wasn't true. I never have been able to develop a taste even for beer, myself, probably entirely psychological, but certainly not worth a big effort to change.
Anyhow, the classic American 2-week vacation was brought up as part of the reason Americans don't travel. I understand that. Once in a while, you have to visit the relatives, and once you've gone to see them for Thanksgiving or Christmas, there's just not much vacation time left. Then there's the problem of jet lag. You have to deal with that in both directions, so by the time you go somewhere far enough away to induce it and get past it, it's time to go back home a touch early so you'll have time to have got past it before you have to start work, especially since at a lot of jobs, no one will have done your work while you were gone. Taking a holiday has already meant working extra hard the week before, and you're going to have to work extra hard the week you come back as well. No wonder so many folks chose just to not take the holiday in the first place, let alone taking one outside the country.
What is going to happen when Americans finally realize that the same companies that are giving them vacations of only two weeks and keep increasing the portion of healthcare their employees pay and cutting back on their contribution to the retirement plans of their employees, these same companies are paying their employees in other countries more, giving them 5-week vacations, giving them much greater benefits, and.....GET THIS!!!!....they still manage to make a profit from their offices in those other countries. Why would they be there at all if thei weren't. What is going to happen when american realize all this?
When they start traveling outside the US and find out how good things are alsewhere. That's when.
Me, i realized it a long time ago and it's a big factor in my leaving.

I did not forget. I did get busy.

Although this blog has been costantly on my mind, the demands of a move overseas have commanded the use of my hands, and other significan parts, since I last posted. For one thing (dum de de dum dum dum dum DAH!) I got married. This means that I can move to England with my sweetie and have full working rights. One very very very long honeymoon in Europe is anticipated.

Another thing that has taken a lot of time and effort is beginning to get rid or all the things we're NOT taking with us. A few years ago, when we combined households, a lot of my sweetie's possession had to be put in storage. These include a huge MAN'S couch. You know the kind. Swede. Three generous seats, two of which have lazy-boy type foot supports. A huge TV. Two tables, no make that three. A vacuum. Two big speakers. A chair. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I decided the best way to sell them would be to post them each on Craigslist (a website you ought to check out for any number of reasons) separately. This took one evening. And every evening since I've spent some considerable time replying to enquiries and trying to organize a time when a good number of the folks who replied can come to the storage space, look things over, make deals, and carry off their prizes.

And my sweetie started a new job. Ever start a new job after a considerable period of not working? Doesn't matter how easy the job is. You come home feeling like wet spaghetti for the first week or so. We're both having some trouble adjusting to the new schedule and just getting everything done that needs done in the time available with both of us working. And he says it's very weird to be starting a job and not being able to tell his coworkers about one of the biggest things on his mind. It just wouldn't do to blurt out "I'll be moving to England in about two months!" when you've just started a supposedly permanet job.

So why start one? Because you never know. The move to England could still fall through for any number of reasons.

Speaking of the new schedule, I MUST get to bed now. Hope to post sooner. Resolve to post sooner. Promise to post sooner.

Sorry 'bout that

The time since my last blog posting has flown by. And we have done several things to further our move to England.

1) We visited our storage space to distinguish between things that woud go with us, things that will be sold (we hope!), and things that can't be sold and can be let go of. That's one of the best things about any move for pack rats like me. I have to let go of a lot of things that I have kept in case I needed them again some time. When I say it's one of the good things, that doesn't mean I enjoy it. it just means it's good for me.

Memo to self: MUST balance good-for-me with fun-for-me. Balance is tipping toward good-for-me.

2) I finished my application for a BRIO (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) artists award. It would be a big boost for the budget that would make starting my textile design business over again in England much easier. It would also involve a trip back for a community service project of some sort, which wouldn't be a bad thing either.

3) We got our marriage licence! We've been meaning to get married but the difference it will make for my statis in Britain has motivated us to finally get it done.

Memo to self: Stop now before getting gooey!

The Wall

 Just a few words about my New Years Eve.

First, quickly, we watched the movie "Barbershop". I'd heard about it and knew a little about it and it had three stars in our TV listings, so I thought, why not? It desrved much better than that. Perhaps as a white person, I had been thinking of it as a movie that would be of interest to black people. Perhaps I might not even understand many of the jokes or references. I was wrong. Dead wrong. And I'll admit it. That was one meaty movie, a movie with so much substance to it that I might well watch it again to catch the things I missed the first time around. And for me, it's a very rare movie that I want to watch again for that reason. So to anyone that hasn't seen it, see it.....for what my opinion is worth, of course.

Then I watched a movie about The Band's last performance. i enjoyed it a lot. It reminded me how much music of my youth is classic and still able to stand up to the test of time and stand above a lot of what's coming out lately. I'm not saying that what is coming out is bad, but will it stand up and still be played from the college dorm rooms of 20 and 30 years in the future? I doubt it. I could be wrong, though.

The third thing we watch was Pink Floyd's performance of The Wall in Berlin in 1990 just after the Berlin Wall had been opened up. And this is why my New Years Eve TV watching belongs in a blog about emigration. My SO in 1989 was a guy who had spent several years studying in Berlin. The Berlin Wall opened up on Novermber 5, 1989 or close to that. We watched it all closely, and he said he just HAD to go there, to BE there. I didn't really understand why it was such a big thing to him, but I never saw anyone organize a spontaneous trip to Germany quicker and more efficiently. This was not my SO's strong suite and it involved among other things dropping off everything that had been collected to be our Thanksgiving dinner including a huge frozen turkey (a "bonus" from work) off at a homeless shelter. So we went. We flew into Dusseldorf, because there was no chance of getting a low-cost flight to Berlin, and took the train into Berlin. That, in itself, was the beginning of my understanding. The train traveled a barricaded path through East Germany. it was like traveling with blinders on, so extensive were the efforts of the East to make sure those traveling Westerners couldn't see in and the Easterners couldn't make their way out somehow via this train passage.

Once in Berlin, very late in the evening, we were met by his friends. I believe we went straight from the train station to the Wall. The friends wanted to do this, and SO was eager too. I was tired from our journey and really thought it could wait. It was freezing cold. We parked and started walking toward the Wall. It was nearly midnight by then and we had parked some distance away, maybe as much a a mile since the friends said it would take about 15 minutes to get there. I remember asking because I thought we were almost there. There was this sound, coming seemingly from all around us. Clink. Clink, clink, clink. Clink, clink. All kinds of different tones. Some deep. Some almost like wind chimes. The closer we got, the louder it got. Eventually we began to hear people sounds, too. Voices in dozens of languages.

Now remember, this was midnight and it was freezing, and there were dozens and dozens of people out chipping at that Wall, talking to each other, peering through the small places where chipping from one side had met chipping from the other so that the people on the two sides could see each other. And there was a joy like nothing I'd ever seen before, and maybe haven't seen since.

That sound is what sticks in my mind when I think about it. Nobody who wasn't really THERE heard that sound or experienced that community of people from every corner of the world who cared enough to come and take that Wall apart with their own hands. And the people of the two Berlins? Talk about a V-8 moment. They were trying to get their minds around a fact that had just dawned fully on them. The only reason that Wall stood for 20 years was that THEY LET IT! The moment that that Wall became unaccetable to enough people to the point that they were willing to take action on that attitude of unacceptance, the Wall ceased to be effective in dividing them.

The experience of going there, of searching in the stores for a hammer and chisel that would be strong enough to put a dent in that Wall (and that Wall was built tough!), and doing it! And the idea that unacceptable things CAN be eliminated if people just care enough to take action. I brought that back with me. It lives inside me. When I see something like the demonstrations in the Ukraine, I remember it. When I took part in the demonstrations outside the Republican Convention this summer, I remembered it. Who would have thought that so soon after 1989, my own country would be a place in which the people accepted the unacceptable? Who would have thought that the Ukraine would someday have a more valid democracy than my own country? Who would have thought that demonstrations would be walled off from any chance of effectiveness here? And who would have thought that so few of my countrymen would care about it?

That's why I'm leaving.