Adventure Challenge: Week 1

I was able to ease into my no-shopping resolution this year because I will be spending the rest of January brushing up my Spanish in Argentina. Knowing that I would be gone for a month and there would be nobody home to receive the usual weekly haul from UPS and FedEx forced me to curtail my online shopping just before Christmas. The first few weeks are the most important for habit formation, so I am glad this trip got me off on the right foot. Packing was a much more high-stakes endeavor than usual, since I won't be able to buy anything I might forget or need. (As if packing weren't sufficiently unpleasant before.) I won't be able to buy any clothes or shoes on this trip, which is too bad because on our honeymoon to Argentina in 2009, I scored an amazing leather jacket, boots, and a scarf, all of which I still wear and get tons of compliments on. This time I'll focus on consumables (malbec, anyone?) and maybe stuff for the home. I am sure I won't come back empty-handed.

What do I hope to gain at the end of this year? Try as I might, I won't be a tanned, 22-year-old recent college graduate and those footloose days in Greece are long gone. But beyond a fatter bank account, I am hoping to gain a more deliberate approach to the things I bring into my life. I want to wean myself off of impulse buys and start purchasing things I really love that will last. My sister and I have frequently fantasized about having "French girl wardrobes" of 10 perfect items. That simplicity and self-restraint appeal to me. And maybe some of those same qualities will spill over to the rest of my life: patience, delayed gratification, an appreciation for quality over quantity, self-awareness, contentment. When I get back to shopping in 2014, I hope I have an entirely new philosophy. I hope I will realize that fashions don't transform so often that you need new stuff every week just to keep up. I hope the idea of "keeping up" doesn't even occur to me. I hope I can get over my chronic FOMO and remember that if you miss out on that adorable shift dress on Rue La La, there's another one right around the corner because that's the only way stores can stay in business. When I was in Greece or in Australia for two months last year, my tiny wardrobe could fit in a medium-sized suitcase and I never felt like I looked uncool. I want to be able to keep my head about me when all of my college friends look amazing at the 10-year reunion in June and I am wearing a dress from the back of my closet. I want to challenge and improve myself because I know I can do it, not because I need to.

For now, I don't even miss shopping. I feel hungover from my holiday shopping binge and had my trip to look forward to, plus all the logistics of a month overseas to handle. And there's nothing good in the stores right now anyway. I am sure it will get harder before it gets easier.

An Adventure Challenge for 2013

When I traveled to Greece to work as travel writer during the summer after college, I had nothing but a backpack and a clunky 1999 vintage laptop in an unfashionable case to my name. Working for a company specializing in "budget travel," I lived the genuine experience, surviving on about $50 per day for nine weeks. Believe me, you can't get too far on $50 once you subtract the bus fare to whatever dusty Greek town you're supposed to check out that day and the cost of a spare room in some yiayia's house for the night. If you're lucky, you have enough money for one delicious gyro and then it's time to head home and bang out 15 pages of copy on the ol' Thinkpad.

I was poor, lonely, foreign, tired, often bored. In the occasional moments I found myself somewhere beautiful or exciting (and not at another underwhelming tiny museum filled with nothing but fragments of ancient pottery) I usually had neither the money or the company to enjoy it. Looking back, it was one of the best times of my life. I was alive. I was young. I lived simply and authentically. I am so proud and thankful for that experience.

Although my circumstances have changed drastically in the past 10 years--I'm now married with a well-paying desk job, my own home, and comfortable life--I still see myself as that solitary writer in Greece. I wanted to prove to myself that I haven't gone completely soft. That I could still live simply and authentically, on only what I can carry (so to speak). I decided I would eschew a luxury that I have begun to take for granted: my shopping habit. For years I have binge-shopped online, ordering hundreds of dollars of clothes and shoes each month. No, I am not drowning in credit card debt. I can comfortably afford it all. But I know I don't need it. I feel like I am becoming enslaved to things, to consumerism and mindless impulse buys. I want to remind myself of who I am, the way I see myself; to reassert my values of living deliberately and meaningfully and prove to myself that I can do it. Yes, it's a small, perhaps superficial way of proving that. But a year is a long time. And I have already been tempted to buy a pair of really cute octopus pajamas on One Kings Lane. So let the adventure begin. 

The rules:

1. No new purchases of clothing, accessories, jewelry or shoes for the duration of one year (1 January-31 December 2013).*

2. Beauty products, home goods, and gifts for others are allowed.

3. Hubby can only give me gifts on established gift-giving occasions (birthday, Valentines Day, Christmas).

*In the interest of full disclosure, I have one pre-planned purchase (a Goyard tote) that I already committed to buying with my sister on my next trip to NYC. The above rules apply to all new purchases. My journey will be fully and truthfully documented here, to include any lapses.

Kodachrome Gypsy Book Club - Best Reads of 2012

Another year gone by. As always, I spent a significant portion of it reading. Here are my favorites from 2012:

Steve Jobs (Isaacson). Hubby would not stop talking about how fantastic this book was and urging me to read it. I was initially reluctant, insisting that I had no interest in joining a bunch of Apple fan-boys to worship at the altar of a megalomaniac in a mock turtleneck. Turns out, I was misguided. Although it is an authorized biography, the book does not deify Jobs. In fact, much of it focuses on his flaws and idiosyncrasies--including his "reality distortion field"--and how these both contributed to and constrained his success at Apple. Most interestingly, Isaacson frequently contrasts Apple's (and Jobs's) hippy, counter-cultural self-image with its rigid and at times cutthroat business practices. Isaacson portrays Jobs as a highly compelling figure and a true visionary, but probably not someone you'd want to hang out with.

The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood). Written in 1986, this novel depicts a dystopian future where feminists and Christian fundamentalists unite to establish a bizarre and repressive social order, reminiscent of 1984. Offred, the protagonist, is a handmaid, the unfortunate object of the male-dominated establishment's brutal repopulation policies. Chilling, original, and thought-provoking.

NW (Smith). I am a big fan of Zadie Smith and devoured her other novels, White Teeth and On Beauty. NW does not disappoint. It is quintessential Smith, featuring the vivid characters, snappy dialogue, class conflict, and multiculturalism she's known for. NW weaves together vignettes of four residents in gritty northwest London, including former schoolmates Natalie and Leah, who grew up together in public housing but have drifted apart in adulthood. A complex narrative with a surprising, heartbreaking finale.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers (Boo). A work of narrative non-fiction that feels like a novel, Behind the Beautiful Forevers is the result of three years of on-the-ground reporting from Annawadi, a slum near the Mumbai airport, and poignantly recounts the residents' poverty, relationships, and aspirations for a better life. Elegantly written, the book paints the slum residents as complicated individuals, at points evoking pity, contempt, disgust, or amusement in the reader.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Foer). The story of nine-year-old Oskar Schell's quest for closure following his father's death in the 9/11 attacks in New York City. Oskar is a quirky, precocious, solitary kid who joins forces with an elderly shut-in to track down the lock that fits a key he discovered in his father's closet. The layered plot addresses the pain of loss through a variety of lenses, including war, terrorism, childhood, and relationships.