Show Overview
Today I’m continuing my series on how some particularly adventurous boomers choose to live out their sunset years outside the United States. There are lots to things to consider before making that choice, and here to help us steer through it is author and former actress Tricia Pimental, who with her husband Keith landed in Fundao, Portugal where they are enjoying the good life at one third the cost of living in the US.
Now I want to give some context for this interview. Tricia is presently the Portugal Correspondent for International Living magazine, and the Dan she mentions in our interview is Dan Prescher who is also with International Living. I interviewed Dan in show #47 where he talks about ex-pat life south of the border. But today we are heading over the big pond to Europe.
Now if you’ve listened to my other shows, you know I am especially interested in how ex-pat living affects marriage and other close family relationships. Tricia and Keith have been married 26 years, have grown children and a passel of grandchildren, so we jump right into it. Tricia and I had so much fun, we talked for a good bit, so I broke this show into two parts. Be sure to stay to the end, because I have some goodies to give away, and I want to be sure you get them, plus we have a little secret to tell about Tricia.
So please join me for my interview with an American living in Portugal, Tricia Pimental.
What you will learn about Tricia’s journey to Portugal:
- The pros and cons of the nomadic life
- How she manages her family life, especially after the birth of her first grandchild
- How she was dragged “kicking and screaming” from a comfy life, but would never go back
- How relationships have deepened as a result of her life choice
- How she finds new friendships through two organizations: The International Women of Portugal and Americans Living in Portugal
- About her books Escape to Portugal; A Movable Marriage: a memoir; Rabbit Trail: How a Former Playboy Bunny Found Her Way
- The right attitude to have when considering the nomadic life
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Brant’s 2011 Trip to Portugal
Below are some pictures I took during my 2011 trip to Portugal, where I stayed mostly in Salema (our beach hangout), a village located near Vila do Bispo in the Algarve. From there I visited Lagos (see the green rocks) and Cape Sagres, then to Lisbon. Sagres was referred to as “the end of the world” by 16th century sailors because their ship and navigation technology was incapable of taking them beyond.
Just over the horizon “there be dragons.” Is that true for any of you?
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I Am a Racist
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
I often hear nowadays, people being accused.
“He’s a racist.”
“She’s a racist.”
“Trump’s a racist.”
“So and so’s a racist.”
What I have yet to hear is: “I am a racist.”
So let me be the first.
I am a racist.
Yes.
I see the ugly thing, creeping around my soul like a roach in the kitchen. I squash it, but sometime later, there it is again.
I know there is a nest somewhere, eggs hatching, a source deep within me, hidden away where it’s easy to deny. There is where I'll find the library of my false beliefs, the lies I tell myself over and over, so often they become grooves cut into my gray matter, like fissures in rock where the water runs down, cutting deeper and deeper, until fissures become swales, and swales become canyons.
When did the first racist raindrop fall? I don’t know. As a child, for sure. How many drops of poison does it take to pollute the vessel of pure water of which we are born? When, exactly, does a person become a racist, and who gets to decide?
I don’t know, but then, neither does anyone else.
I don’t believe in permanence. That’s one thing the Buddhists have taught me.
Everything changes.
We can become aware of that library of false beliefs, that nest of nasties that colors our perception of things, often for the worse. Awareness alone brings change. We can cut new grooves. My challenge as a human being is not to deny that I am a racist, for that would be as foolish as denying I have cancer when I really do. My challenge is, rather, to stop the cancer from metastasizing and poisoning the whole man.
I doubt I will ever fully eradicate my racism. Unfortunately, I suspect some vestige of it will always be with me. But what I can do, and what I do do, is expose myself to experiences that lessen my racism, those being travel, kind and honest conversation, and breaking bread with “the others” whenever I can. These experiences, like wind and rain, smooth rock and, over time, lay low even the highest mountains.
So when I hear the angry crowd shouting, "He’s a racist,” I want to ask:
“Who among you is not a racist? Stand up then and take a bow...for you are surely a god.”
I moved to Substack!
Hi there. If you've read this far, then you enjoy, or are at least intrigued by, my ideas. If you want to learn more, jump over to my new website on Substack, where I continue to write about travel, the second half of life, and other mad musings.
