Let the Adventure Continue!
I have lived overseas several times. First, I spent an academic year in Germany as a high school exchange student. Then, I went and taught English in China. I spent a month on language immersion in Jordan, and seven and a half months deployed in Afghanistan when I was in the Air Force. When the pandemic struck, I was teaching English in Slovakia. And now I'm at it again!
Olive tress and church spires.
When I was in China, I came up with the perfect title for my future memoirs: What Was I Thinking? Confessions of a Casual Adventurer (the subtitle has had some variations over the years). I definitely had some "what was I thinking" moments as I prepared to move overseas last month, during the journey, and in the first two or three days in-country. All to be expected. Less than a week after arriving, I'm already feeling pretty settled in, but I know I won't really feel at home until I know the language. More on that later.
In the meantime, let me explain what's happening now - or rather, let me sum up.
I have moved to Croatia. My last name is Croatian (albeit with Americanized spelling because that's what they used to do when someone immigrated to the US), and a few years ago my dad discovered we were eligible to apply for citizenship because of our ancestry. He had already been to Croatia several times after tracking down our relatives there, but I hadn't. I wasn't sure I wanted to put in the work (and money!) to apply for citizenship in a country I'd never been to. So, long story short, I went to Croatia with Dad during spring break (I was working on a master's degree at the time), met the relatives, and explored Zagreb, the old family farms in Lika, and the Dalmatian coast. The relatives are super nice, the people everywhere were warm, the language sounded great, and the food was delicious - satisfied that I could be happy living there, I applied for citizenship! Earlier this year, in the spring, I found out my application had been approved.
Thus was introduced the question, when should I go live there?
I always figured I'd move to Croatia within five years of getting citizenship, were I to be approved. Once I was approved, I thought I'd move in the next 2-5 years. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought why wait? I don't own property I'd have to sell or rent. I don't have a husband or kids to consider. And although I loved my job and my volunteer work with Civil Air Patrol, I'd become much busier with both over the last year and, as a result, hadn't done any worthwhile writing in ages. As a Croatian citizen, I didn't need a job in Croatia or digital nomad status to move there. And with the cost of living differential, I realized I could afford to live there without a local day job - I could write full-time!
Almost every novel I've published was drafted when I was writing full time. Random Walk? Researched and drafted the year I moved to Indiana and lived with my parents so I could write full time. The Red Door? Drafted during the pandemic after coming home from Slovakia. The Ethics of Hope? Written in 2021, before I started my MAT program and my part-time day job. Even Standard Candles was written primarily in the summer, when I was working but not taking classes - and I wrote at least a third of it when I took time off from work to go on a writing retreat.
Four novels in five years. I am not a fast writer. I couldn't have done that without those periods of time I was focused solely on my writing.
So I've moved to Croatia. I'm renting an apartment for the off-season, in a small tourist town near Pula in Istria. After that, we'll see. I might leave for tourism season and come back next fall, or I might extend my lease and stay put (it might be fun to see how crazy it gets here in the summer) - or I might go elsewhere. Who knows? For now, I'm just excited to be here, to spend at least the next several months just writing and learning the language. And in this blog, I'm going to bring you along for the ride.
I'll be sharing journal entries from this and other adventures I've gone on, and cataloguing life in Istria - from surviving the bura winds to where to find good olive oil. And if you want to be kept updated about my writing, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter, The Uplink.
In my next entry, I'll tell you all about the journey here, which was not without its drama, as these long journeys tend to have.
Until then, hvala for reading, and have a great day!
-RML