It’s been an unforeseen start to 2024.

In December, we decided to spend January in Paris. The winter days are short and dreary, but not snowy. They are cold, but seldom freezing. It’s a fallow time, and fallow was what I sought.

Then, the day before we flew to France, our landlord in Charlottesville told us that she needed our apartment. We could take our time, but by the end of the year, we’d have to move.

Our month in Paris took a less peaceful turn than I’d anticipated. We spent our time on what ifs? And what nows?

At the end of January, Pat flew home while I went to Poland for work. The week before the meetings started, I detoured to Warsaw, toured the Jewish ghetto, listened to Chopin, and wandered the old town each morning in the hour before dawn. It was reminiscent of our move to Slovakia more than 12 years ago when everything felt new, and I felt invigorated.

Five days later, I took a four-hour train ride to Wroclaw.

There, our meetings started; There, my front tooth fell out.

At some point, mixed into all of this, the country music singer Toby Keith had died. Given I didn’t know his songs, this last fact feels random, but trust me. It’s not.

The universe works in mysterious ways.

Let’s start with the “eviction.” (A word my son claims doesn’t apply when one is given a year notice.) For personal reasons, our landlord had no choice but to take the apartment back, which isn’t to say that she and I both didn’t shed a few tears. Charlottesville had become home. Our landlord is like family. The perfect, tiny apartment couldn’t be replicated.

Pat and I spent our days in Paris rehashing our options. This is neither the first time, nor will it be the last time, when we debate the comfort of home versus the thrill of the road.

Pat’s first reaction was that we’d give up the Paris apartment and get a more permanent home in Charlottesville. My response was more graphic and involved potential bloodshed (his). At my core, I’m a wanderer—albeit one with a fervent love of a certain pied-à-terre.

Besides, unexpectedly losing our home in Charlottesville felt like a sign, and I never trifle with signs.

After some (let’s call it) discussion, we agreed to keep our Paris apartment but not get residency. This would forcibly limit our time in the better part of Europe to six months each year. We’d interleave these visits with a period of nomadic life. Nothing exotic. Visits to our far-flung family and the requisite roadtrips between them. January escapes to warm weather. Exploits from Paris to other parts of Europe.

Our part-time base would become our only base. This, we decided, was something we both could accept.

I messaged our Charlottesville landlord that we’d move out by October first and booked tickets to fly immediately thereafter to Paris. We’d return to the US in time to dash about at Christmas, visiting our kids and their families before heading to Oaxaca, Mexico for January.

Pat and I both grew more comfortable, excited even, with our decision.

Then, biting into a cookie during a lunch break from the meetings in Wroclaw, my tooth fell out.

At times like this, the road can become a miserable and daunting place. I spent the next twenty minutes alone in a conference room where I contemplated my options and questioned this deal that Pat and I had only recently constructed.

Perhaps, I thought, we should buy a charming bungalow equidistant between a level one trauma center and an endodontist. There I would live out my years without ever having to say, “You’re not gonna believe what just happened.”

But first, I had to solve the immediate problem of my tooth. After failing to find an online dental clinic with English capabilities, I went in search of the site admin support and said, “You’re not going to believe what just happened.”

I explained the situation. She made a phone call. The next morning, I took the tram to the outskirts of town where an English-speaking receptionist told me to wait outside door number 4. Inside, two hygienists and two dentists had convened to help me, ensuring that both my language needs and my physical needs could be met. When my verbal explanation of the problem failed, I pulled my precariously perched cap off its post and held it aloft like a quarter extracted from an ear by a magician.

“Easy!” I exclaimed (which seemed more appropriate under the circumstances than “tada!”)

One of the doctors, who had introduced himself as an oral surgeon, said, “You won’t need me,” as he headed off to other work. The other dentist reattached my tooth. She used Google-translate to make sure that I understood the instructions: no food or water for two hours. As I left she smiled and told me, “If you have any more problems, please come back.”

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

I spent the better part of the next several days reliving the experience, gobsmacked by their kindness. The world, I reminded myself, is full of good people. In life in general, and on the road for sure, bad days will come. That’s when the magic happens.

I believe that. I have to believe that.

A few days after tooth-gate, I flew home to Charlottesville. I told Pat the details of my dental experience—the alchemy involved to turn doubt in our plans into anticipation for our future. We agreed that we needed to keep leaning into life.

In that spirit, Pat recounted a Toby Keith interview that he’d stumbled upon. In it, the musician shared a conversation he’d had with Clint Eastwood who was at the time turning 88. When asked how he’d spend his birthday, Clint replied that he was leaving town to direct a new movie. Toby asked him why, at this age, he’d head off to work for several months.

Clint Eastwood replied, “I try to get up and be productive—don’t let the old man in.”

Indeed.

This is what happens when you give a great line to a songwriter—a song entitled Don’t Let the Old Man In.

I listened to the song, contemplated my belief in signs, heard the call of the road, embraced the magic, accepted that an itinerant life was realistically now or never.

The warning sirens had sounded; the universe had answered.

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Warsaw:

And Wroclaw:

Categories: Life in Paris, Ruminations

Tags: Life in Paris, nomadic retirement, the world inbetween, Unusual retirement options