I just off the phone with my friend Lars, aka Okki. He had called via Whatsapp on Friday but I had missed his call, so I called him back, figuring he was in South America and it would be later in the morning.
It was a short call, as I could tell I caught him perhaps at an awkward time. If it is he who calls, it is usually at time when he is being social with others, or by himself, having had a beer or two, and we talk for a long time. But his vibe on the call today was subdued. It is one of those things with me, making a phone call to a friend or a relative. I may really want to talk to them, but I can so easily talk myself out of it, thinking maybe it's not a good time to call, and the other person will have to pretend like it was a good time to call, when in fact it was not. But lately I've been reading how people, especially young folk, are getting averse to making phone calls and it has begun to seem awkward to them, and something they avoid. Hearing this, I realize that phone calls are a thing that is becoming out of step with our times, so now I want to make phone calls. That is how it works for me. What's the opposite of cutting edge? That's me.
But Okki---he'll talk to me anyway, even if it's not a great time, because he is so extraverted, and give me an update on his life. I am very comfortable around him because he does so much of the "work" of friendship that way, not just with me but with everyone. He's also around people, coming and going in his house, going back to when I met him in 2011, and he was living in a mobile home park in Boulder, at the end of Valmont Road where it backs up to Boulder Creek. We would go out on his back porch and have beers while watching the creek flow a few feet away. It felt like the best place in Boulder. Okki is the kind of guy who would stumble into that kind of situation.
He is no longer in Patagonia, which where he called me from last winter, but in Ecuador, at some town at 3100 m altitude. He had meandered through a list of other South American countries, which included a stay in Brazil for a month. He is looking for a place to settle down which is cheap, enjoyable, and where he can make his retirement funds stretch enough to support himself. He and Stefan had traveled many times together to Brazil, so he thought Brazil might work for him, but the heat got to him. He needs altitude and coolness. I told him I understood and mentioned that it was coming up to the worse time of year for heat here.
He had just arrived in Ecuador two days before (the day he called me), and of course he had already made friends---a Frenchman and a Canadian he met on the bus, and also an American woman who knew of possible properties he could rent. He had stayed in Ecuador during the pandemic--in fact he got trapped in an apartment in the capital--while thinking about settling down there with his pension. He was even willing to tap into his 401K. The tax burden of various countries is now strongly on his mind. Perhaps Ecuador will work for him after all, but if not, maybe Portugal.
In the meantime there are semi-legal cannabis dispensaries in Ecuador.
After fifteen minutes (a short call for him), he tipped off that he wanted to call that American woman this morning to maybe seal up the apartment deal. If he can rent an apartment, he can start Spanish lessons (once again) to maybe get residency.
The next time. I hear from him, will he still be in Ecuador? Who knows. But in the meantime I actually made a phone call to a friend today. That by itself is extraordinary.
No comments:
Post a Comment