Tag: Europe

Goodbye Warehouse Clubs, Hello European Markets

What Happens When You Embrace Small Scale Living

Today was our last attempted Costco run—we’ll be leaving for a European country with no Costco in a couple months, and within weeks we’ll sell nearly everything to stay briefly with family.

I went for peanut butter, soymilk, yogurt, and sausages. At the door, I was warned my membership had expired and would automatically renew at checkout. I politely declined, noting we’d soon be abroad with no plans to renew. The door person asked, surprised, “Oh, does the country not have a Costco?” I confirmed. No. Out of habit, I even apologized, which seemed misplaced. I’m sorry our new country will not have a Costco?

For now, it’s probably for the best—spending $200 on items we’d likely give away or cram into an already packed car for our cross-state trip wouldn’t make sense. I already want to bring our pantry staples: beans, lentils, and the Instant Pot. (Don’t get me started on the spice blends I want to take overseas).

So yes, it’s bittersweet. Costco sustained us through many layoffs, recessions, and winter storms. We accumulated cases of tomato products, bags of beans, lentils, and rice; large spice containers; boxes of soy milk; oversized bottles of hot sauce, olive oil, juice; giant bags of nuts and granola. For decades, Costco anchored our frugal American lifestyle. I learned to cook soups, stews, chilis, bean dishes, and more, out of my pantry.

But moving to a small European town will change all this in ways that weren’t possible in the US. In Europe, towns will be walkable, lined with fresh produce markets on every street corner. Homes will be small, lacking storage space. We may not own a car at all. I’m looking forward to walking daily to bakeries for bread, stopping at cheese shops, visiting a butcher. I’m excited to embrace a different pace, a smaller scale. But another part of me will likely still find myself storing containers of beans, rice, or potatoes—habits born from lean times.

Notes:

Support this work – I share additional writing, behind-the-scenes notes, and works-in-progress on Patreon.

MA Thesis on Butoh – I self-published my thesis exploring performance, embodiment, and cultural history. Available here.

One-time support – If you’d like to contribute directly, a $3 tip via Ko-fi is always appreciated.

The Quiet Between Chaos: Stepping Back Before the Big Move

Packing, planning, and prepping – but not ready for the big reveal.

Took a breather from writing for a couple months. The world and my bandwidth experienced some tumult, to say the least. The US went to war with Iran, we helped a family member move out of state, and our own preparations for our international move shifted from the conceptual to the daily grind of a merciless to-do list. I did not have the spoons for reflective writing – at least not anything public.

In the quiet moments between chaos, I turned to books: Orwell’s 1984, Budgie’s memoir The Absence (the drummer for Siouxsie and the Banshees), and most recently Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.

I’ve been buried under the slow moving, flakey world of Facebook Marketplace, the piles of digital bureaucracy of all things financial, legal, and administrative that comes with such a move, and the demanding march of getting our house ready for sale and ourselves overseas. It’s easy to lose yourself in spreadsheets when the bigger picture feels uncertain.

I’m not ready to announce where we are headed. I’m trying to thread the needle between safety, privacy, and superstition. It’s also TBD what direction my writing will take for this chapter. Many people are seeking others detailing checklists, budgetary guidelines – and I’ve definitely been a consumer of that kind of travel writing.

Balancing the audience’s hunger for roadmaps with my desire to stay true to a more reflective, culturally observant style, and navigating the boundaries of transparency, remains to be seen. I’ve been following a number of YouTube channels and Instagram profiles, and many approach these same questions in different ways.

I expect my style to evolve – there is no point in being prescriptive. It is also not in my nature to duplicate others’ efforts.

What’s on the Table

What I can reveal is that we’re a family of three, traveling with a young adult child. I will address observations for that demographic broadly, without personal transparency. We will also be traveling with two small dogs. We will likely be traveling out in the summer and spend a couple months exploring different cities in the country we are interested in, until we find one we’d like to establish a residency in. We are hoping for an affordable, walkable town with arts, culture, museums, theatres, outdoor eateries, and nature. It would be wonderful if we found opportunities for my spouse to DJ post-punk/80’s underground for any local venues. In the meantime his darkwave/postpunk playlists are available on MixCloud.

I hope to find a good homebase for exploring the rest of Europe while diving deep into the local arts scene—both of which I plan to write about.

Stay tuned!

Notes:

💚 Shop Independent: All book links in this post go to Bookshop.org. Your purchase supports local bookstores and helps fund this writing. (Affiliate links used).

💡 Support this work – I share additional writing, behind-the-scenes notes, and works-in-progress on Patreon.

📖 MA Thesis on Butoh – I self-published my thesis exploring performance, embodiment, and cultural history. Available here.

☕ One-time support – If you’d like to contribute directly, a $3 tip via Ko-fi is always appreciated.