Whether to Stay Put

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

-Dorothy Parker

No, this isn't a post about suicidal ideation. I was just thinking about the above poem this morning as I was searching the internet for overseas living options if we want to escape the current insanity in the U.S.

Would you believe that my sixth grade English teacher assigned that poem and led a group discussion among us innocent twelve-year-olds? I was at a school for the gifted that year, likely as the result of a computing error on an IQ test, and they figured we could handle the subject matter. Plus, the willowy, pale, long-haired teacher always seemed a little gloomy to me. Maybe the assignment was an inappropriate window into her soul during that fall of 1975 in Southern California.

What brought the poem to mind were the series of brick walls the law presents to a digital nomad hoping to live overseas. Ireland's lovely, but the only way we would be allowed to live there would be to completely retire, and they monitor your income every year for signs of cheating by trying to earn a little here and there. So until we're ready to truly quit, that's not such a great option. And quitting right now with all the financial burdens we carry around would be financial suicide. Plus, they tax that passive income as if you're an Irishman.

Canada? A lovely place that captured our heart this past weekend (I still need to write a little about all that, before I forget it all), but we can only stay a half-year, and they won't let us buy anything in a location where one might actually want to live; the ten largest metropolitan areas are off-limits to American homebuyers. Maybe PEI? I'm told it's lovely. Peg and I met a guy a few weeks ago who used to have a farm there.

The Netherlands allows digital nomads. I'm just not so sure about living in a place so very flat. At least it would be close to Jim and Anna, as long as they're still living in Brussels.

I also saw somewhere that Norway might let us in. But all I know of the Norwegians I learned from watching Lillyhammer, and I'm not sure that culture is a fit. And there's the cold. And the three months of mostly darkness.

Which all leads back to the question of why we would be leaving. Is it fear that ICE is coming for us? We're white, old, and insulated from a lot of the financial storms that are bound to sweep across the country with the foolish economic policies (if you could even call them that) being shoved down our throats by the Emperor. So no, it's not like we're likely to end up in the fancy new concentration camp in the Everglades, or to be forced to sell apples on a a streetcorner.

An act of protest? Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face doesn't seem like much of an act of civil disobedience. That monk who set himself on fire in Saigon six decades ago didn't do anything to slow down the war.

A desire to escape the toxicity of the moment here? Probably closest to reality. It was lovely being in Canada, where no one talks about MAGA or much cares about the national suicide taking place to the south. But we could accomplish the same thing by stopping the doomscrolling, and just concentrating on making the most of our time together. And it wouldn't cost a thing.

The view up here is certainly tough to beat. No place in Ireland or the Netherlands can compare.

So maybe that's the answer. Considering the alternatives, we might as well live (here).