When my mother and I moved to NYC in 1995 we moved in with my tia Arelys and her three daughters. It was a one bedroom apartment. Between the age of eight (when we arrived) and the age of 22 (when I graduated college) we had moved a total of 11 times. Including a short stint to Washington state (as in the pacific northwest). During our trip to Dominican Republic this January, I had my mom name each location we had moved to, and once done she paused and said “damn, that’s a lot of instability”. Indeed it was Ms. Ada. Not to mention the fact that we always lived with an aunt or a boyfriend, so privacy was not an option. Now at the tender age of 37 I know this was more due to financial circumstances than anything else.
So you can imagine my disdain for such a state of being. And my desire to find my own space to feel grounded and safe in. My year sabbatical tested that need in me and much more. I willingly stepped away from all the safety I had built for myself to try and learn something different. To strengthen and to put to practice the emotional agility I had learned through therapy.
When I arrived in Madrid on May of 2023, I immediately had a small though not insignificant spiral. I found myself at a strangers house, renting a room (via Airbnb), living with nothing but 1/6 of my clothes and my laptop. I thought to myself: WTF did I just do? Who takes a sabbatical? I had only heard of such a thing on Eat, Pray, Love and through a story relayed to me by a peer, whose boss had gone on sabbatical and after a few months updated his team that he was departing from the company and opening up a bar/record store. Both humans at the center of these stories were white. Both have safety nets I do not have. I knew that back in the states my former colleagues were scrambling, looking for jobs and taking advantage of the small window where the rest of the linkedin world was ready, willing, and able to support their efforts (before the rest of the massive layoffs in tech came).
I wondered if I was playing Russian roulette with my career, and in turn my livelihood. I think that moment is emblematic of the “american way” to never take a break, and that if you do— you should still be productive, and that if you’re not being productive then you should feel like you’re asking for problems. So when they arise, you have no one but yourself to blame for such obstacles.
A quick tarot session with my friend put that in order though. She said I had to commit to the experience of living there and not worry about what I was leaving behind. When I commented that I was feeling self-conscious about not having a “job” to talk about if the question came up, she said: make it up! “Aren’t you working on a substack? You’re a writer. What about your podcast idea? You’re a host! Try it on as a costume and see how it feels. Just like living abroad. Commit”.
This was pivot #1. Changing my mindset, and remembering the whole point of why I felt called to go to Europe to begin with. Which was to try living life at a different pace, in a different way, around different people.
Pivot #2 arrived when I decided that Madrid would be my home-base for the summer. I had planned all of my trips back to back, without breaks. And very quickly my eight year old self, started to panic about having to move around relentlessly without a place to call “home”. A vacation is one thing, but months of being a nomad was something else. Additionally, if I was going to start having community there, I needed to invest my time. Getting to know the city more intimately, and connecting with people was going to require commitment. People wanted to get to know me, but the minute I said I was there for a short time, they would check out. Understandably.
So I viewed a number of apartments, and found one I liked. It was in the neighborhood of Lavapiés, a place that reminded me of Queens when I was a kid. A very multicultural (large immigrant population) neighborhood, with great food (Indian, Italian, Dim Sum, they have it! ), and with a few sketchy corners (I call that character!).
The apartment was cute. The owner had black and white photos of old movie stars, like Marylin Monroe, hanging in silver frames. He had plants adorning small corners, and chandeliers in the dining room and living room area. He was adding glamour to an otherwise plain building. Everything was spotless, and clearly he meant business about it because he had chosen white across most of the furniture, including the curtains and sofa. He was friendly and chatty, and I immediately felt welcomed by him. Even though I’d be sharing the bathroom with another tenant, it felt like a home. And that’s all I needed. So I said yes, and paid him my $400 euros for the month ($432 dollars — girl, I know). I dropped off my bag, and off I went on my first travel adventure as the writer/host lady that I was.
Four days later, when I returned from my trip to Porto, I stood in my tiny bedroom and smiled to myself. Here I was, in a room smaller than my dorm at Marist College, wondering how I’d get my clothes into the tiny Ikea closet my landlord provided me with. But I did. Need breeds creativity, and creative I became. I learned to use every inch of that room as smartly as possible, and was mindful of whatever I purchased moving forward. Nothing was wasted. Minimalism was the guiding principle.
Later that week, laying in my small single bed, wearing a t-shirt and my underwear, with my desk fan on high (as AC is not the norm) because it was in the 90s outside, I listened to the kids stumble around their kitchen from the apartment window adjacent to mine, and felt extremely humbled by the entire experience.
I had given up my beautiful two bedroom, two bath apartment off Melrose ave in Los Angeles, put all my belongings in storage (including a sofa that was 2.5x the size of the bed I was laying in), and said yes to living without all of the comforts I thought I needed. This part of my sabbatical made me examine my relationship to the material, including money, and my attachment to objects.
(In part one of this series I talked about our attachment to titles/companies and how that ties to our self-worth)
TikTok creator Sophie Burns said the following about consumption:
“There have been multiple chapters in my life of accumulation, I had a car, I had a lease, I had an apartment, and I had a bed and I had all these things and then I sold it. And then I did it again, and again. So I believe in the cyclical nature of accumulating and shedding. I think culture generally glorifies accumulating and there’s a lot of fear around shedding…”
We attach so much meaning to things, I know I do. I literally named my car (her name is Sasha, it means defender). So how could we possibly not fear letting go of them. Or what ‘feels’ worse: never having it again/not finding something better to replace it with. It is engrained in us, at least here in the US, that what you have and don’t have says a lot about you. And isn’t that ridiculous? That your entire worth can come down to the shoes you wear or the neighborhood you live in? And yet we buy into it (pun intended). What Sophie said and what I’ve been working through reminds me of what Bell Hooks says in chapter 5, page 73 of ‘All About Love’:
“The cultural emphasis on endless consumption deflects attention from spiritual hunger. We are endlessly bombarded by messages telling us that our every need can be satisfied by material increase. Artist Barbara Kruger created a work proclaiming “I shop therefore I am” to show the way consumerism has taken over mass consciousness, making people think they are what they possess. While the zeal to possess intensifies, so does the sense of spiritual emptiness. Because we are spiritually empty we try to fill up on consumerism. We may not have enough love but we can always shop.”
Sophie goes on to talk about how freeing it feels to be in a shedding phase in her life, because it allows her to move with ease. And that’s how I felt in Madrid. I stopped caring about repeating outfits, or not having a TV. I turned my focus inward, and doubled down on practicing gratitude. I committed to having less things, and seeing how that felt and where it could lead me.
To be clear I am not sharing this to seem noble in any way, after all it was a choice to rent that room. And while I was being fiscally responsible with my choice of living arrangements in Madrid, I was still traveling through Europe for pleasure and spiritual growth. Something that most people are not afforded because of the systems we are forced to operate within in this world. Systems upheld by governments that rob us of our TIME. Time spent stressing about bills and having or not having healthcare access. Time that forces us to operate from a place of lack and survival mode, and that keeps us up at night. An endless cascade of problems that feel like the mental weight of one hundred elephants siting on our forehead, and that can only be slightly, albeit briefly, alleviated by the immediate dopamine hit from buying something new. Or by consuming three hours of social media. Or by drinking too many espresso martinis after work. If our time is constantly being depleted by the very real need to keep a roof over our heads and the never ending violations our government deploys upon us, how could we possibly have a moment to pause and critically consider why we consume what we consume, and why we have a need for escapism? How exactly do we get out of autopilot when too much is happening faster than we can process it.
I do not blame us, but I want better for us.
Upon my return to the states, eight year old Yari popped back up. Another small spiral. She was tired of living in other peoples homes. I felt deregulated, and found myself easily irritated and crying at the smallest sign of discomfort. When I spoke to my friend Raven, who is a therapist, she told me that I had overestimated eight year old Yari’s ability to cope with being able to float around from home to home. 37 year old me had not fully accounted for eight year old me needs and limitations. And it was showing. After our chat, I sat in bed and talked to little me, letting her know we were safe and we’d soon have a place of our own. She was more patient after that, and thank goodness I acknowledged her feelings because it took me over 25 apartment viewings to find my new spot. I’m happy to share I’m writing this from my new place, as I sit on the aforementioned sofa and listen to light jazz (what a classy gal!).
I want to add that the process of living with just a few things for nine months was very helpful in moving to my new apartment. Suddenly I didn’t feel as attached to my vintage silver bar cart ( I rarely drink to begin with), and was willing to sell this beautiful sofa if it didn’t properly fit in my living room. I even did another round of cleansing my closet and have a number of things to sell (or do a swap with!).
I am figuring out what the happy medium is for present me and little me in terms of “home”, as well as what works for the version of me that likes nice things (I am a taurus after all!), and the parts of me that have made space to be more critical of my own consumerist habits.
And while I do not have a silver bullet of an answer to share with you at this moment, if you have made it to the end of part two, then you’re at least (potentially) interested in figuring it out for yourself as well.
Cheers to that, and welcome to the fold.
OTHER THINGS
Currently obsessed with Bryson Tiller’s ‘Whatever She Wants’, I understand the irony of the lyrics in juxtaposition to this substack. I’m layered.
I’ve been loving doing tarot readings, (more of that in the final part of this trilogy), but if you want a quick reading, or are looking for clarity on something, or want a year ahead overview you can book me here or DM me on the gramz.
Despite not having watched any of the other women nominated, I think Emma Stone deserves the Oscar for best actress in Poor Things. One of the best pieces of art I’ve watched in the last few years. It was weird, and beautiful, and smart. And it was what I wanted from Barbie (there I said it).
See you next time cuties.