Let’s start Living Elsewhere

Photo: Gregory Garretson

Welcome, friends! If you are reading this, you may have recently subscribed, in which case you have my sincere thanks. In this first post, I want to tell you a bit about this, my new Substack project, and the thinking behind it.

As I write this, I am sitting at a picnic table in the dappled shade of a pine tree by a bank of oleanders dotted with white and fuchsia blossoms. I am listening to cicadas hyperactively playing their tiny electric maracas, a jay quietly engaged in some strange, wet muttering, and a passing hawk saying “Here!” to nobody in particular. It smells like eucalyptus, pine needles, sun-heated wood, and grilled meat. Nearby there is a large group of Portuguese people having a boisterous and boozy mid-afternoon picnic. The temperature and the wind are playing together nicely: 24 degrees Celsius in the shade and breezy. It’s September, and I’m wearing shorts. It’s so perfect I almost want to cry.

And yet, the next time I actually cry will probably be when I return to trying to figure out how to fill in the form I need to submit to the Portuguese Tax and Customs Authority through the stupendously overwhelming Portal das Finanças website, or when I realize that there is actually a twenty-third step in the process of registering my car, or when I next go to look at a wildly overpriced apartment that has mold on the walls, ants crawling in the corners, and a view of somebody’s rusting scrap heap (plus some cabbages). Or maybe when I remember that virtually all of my friends, thanks entirely to choices I have made, are over 2000 kilometers away as that hawk would fly.

Life here in Lisbon, like life anytime we move to another country, has its ups and downs. There are moments of pure joy and moments of crushing despair. And that, I wish to argue, makes it awfully interesting.

Photo: Gregory Garretson

This publication, Living Elsewhere, is an exploration of the aches and elations of leaving one’s home and living in another culture—something I have been experiencing for over twenty years now, as an American living in Sweden, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Germany. Every week I will send out a short essay on a topic such as these:

• The problem of making friends in foreign settings

• The beauty of new places vs. the beauty of home

• Dealing with levels of formality in different European languages

• Talking to strangers, and how this varies between cultures

• Starting over in mid-life, and why we fear change

• What stops Americans from traveling abroad?

• How taboos—like talking politics—vary between cultures

• Why reading is the best way to learn a language

• The special hell of bureaucracy in a new country

• The beauty of solo travel

• The special Nordic relationship to nature

• Interesting ways restaurant etiquette varies across Europe

• The challenges of working from home in a new country

• Different cultures’ relationship to “stuff”

• Why swearing in other languages feels so good

Since my background is in linguistics, many of the essays will be concerned with language and communication. But many others will simply draw on my experiences as a long-time expat trying to figure things out and only sometimes succeeding. I will share my observations, any conclusions I have reached, and my wonder at the maelstrom of impressions that is life abroad.

Also, I will do my damndest to make it entertaining.

If you decide to “splash out”, as my British friends say, and go for a paid subscription, you will also get occasional posts in categories such as these:

• longer essays

• short stories

• travel narratives

• tips for expats in Portugal

• guest pieces

• interviews

• the occasional podcast (if I overcome my dread)

A paid subscription will also enable you to comment on pieces and participate in the community that I hope to generate around these topics. I love the way Substack creates a safe space for like-minded people to interact, and I will try to do my part in keeping some interesting discussions going. (Note, however, that commenting is available to everyone until the paywall goes up in a few weeks.)

If any of this sounds good to you, I suggest that you start with a free subscription, and upgrade to a paid subscription if and when you decide that my writing is worth supporting, or is something you truly enjoy. I appreciate that even one dollar a week is a bite taken out of your budget, but the beauty of Substack is that it allows writers to do what they are good at and actually get paid for it by those who can afford to do so, which I think is a model worth supporting. (If you really want a paid subscription but can’t afford it, just get in touch with me and we’ll work something out.)

If you find that you enjoy Living Elsewhere, another way to support the project is to recommend it to people—on Substack, in other social media, or just by word of mouth. I am really grateful for every referral. It also helps if you simply “like” this post (see below).

I am very excited to be starting off on this journey with you. I’ll see you elsewhere soon!

Gregory