Category: Happiness & Health

The merits of happiness and staying healthy.

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Suggested Song: Take Me to the River, Al Green
Suggested Drink: AIX Rosé (A masterclass on global wine marketing.)

“The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand
as in what direction we are moving.”
– Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I arrived in Aix-en-Provence in the fall of 2010. My son Jess arrived a month later and the twins the following year. It was the start of an era: the Aix-en-Magill years. As I close out this chapter and prepare for the movers, the nature of our eras begs for a glass of wine and a few words.

First contact

Kids can be our greatest ambassadors when arriving in a new town, especially as strangers in a strange land. They make first contact. We meet other parents through their new-found friendships. We enjoy culture-shock group therapy in the school parking lot, waiting for a pick-up. We convene for boozy dinner parties and let our kids run wild for a few hours, comparing their rascally behaviors like pirate scars. Oh you think your kid’s a handful? These engaging new friendships are chicken soup for the wandering soul and soften the landing.

Just another summer afternoon with friends in Aix-en-Provence.
Just another summer afternoon with friends in Aix-en-Provence.

A testament to the intimacy of bonds amongst true compadres is through the naming convention of said friends. Last names trump first names and nicknames trump them all, once that deep familiarity is reached. Each term of endearment holds a history. Chairman of the Board; the Bean; Max the Swede and Canadian Dave; Bongos Eddy and Dada, Parker and Finkel and Magill. In all cases the wives were equally as amusing (and kids suitably troublesome).

In time the kids grow up. Some ask to finish their high-school years back home, their parents dutifully join them, and an era winds down. This is the nature of expat communities: a constant churn as new families arrive and others bid their adieus. It can touch the left-behinds with melancholy, but also provoke a healthy consideration of next moves, to evolve in our own ways and not go stale. I’m beginning to feel stale. My 3 Magill bumpkins have taken root in California. I miss San Francisco. And so I’m moving on.

Let if flow

Life is not an immortal home set on a solid foundation. It is a Huck Finn raft floating down a mighty river. We have a rudder and some (self-deceiving sense of) control, but the current ultimately decides. The wide stretches are slow and calm, the narrow rapids exhilarating. Some inflowing channels, like new friends, sweep us on ahead, and some outflows pull us down unplanned bearings.

The serene Charente River, near my brother’s home in France.
The serene Charente River, near my brother’s home in France.

And so it is with eras. There are feeding streams and swirling eddies and new water churning with the old constantly. I mingle with the new and old here in Aix, some arrivals diving into a fresh era, others rewinding to a more contained stasis. We can be part of all of these, but our own personal eras remain singularly unique. We must lean into them, draw great comfort from them, and know when to let them go.

Adieu Aix-en-Provence, et à bientôt.

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

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Suggested Song: People Got to Be Free, The Rascals
Suggested Drink: POG (Passionfruit, Orange, and Guava) juice. An Hawaiian favorite.

Ana arrived at the Magill door like Mary Poppins in a huipil. Stella and Shane were born in late December and our hands were full. Our oldest, Jess, was a good kid for a 4-year old, but he was still 4 years old; always in motion. I had just started a full-time-and-a-half job in venture capital and Alexandra was starting a full-time-and-a-half job as mom of 3, on an energy pack depleted by 9 months of carrying 2, and then the delivery. We looked for help.

Ana had a distinctly Mayan veneer. Black hair, brown eyes, and bronze skin. Wide, short, solid, and purposeful. Always with a smile, but no need for small talk. Ask her to do something, she did it. ¿Qué puedo hacer por ti ahora, Alejandra?

“What has happened to us in this country? If we study our own history, we find that we have always been ready to receive the unfortunate from other countries, and though this may seem a generous gesture on our part, we have profited a thousand fold by what they have brought us.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

We hired Ana part-time to help with house cleaning while Alexandra focused on the kids. She soon shared the kids and we split up the house chores. Her natural skills as guardian and kid catcher were astounding, her tenderness with children pure mana to us as frazzled parents. Our confidence in her as middle inning relief was absolute (a gratuitous baseball reference, sorry).

At 40, Ana was already a grandmother, with her daughter now expecting #2, unattached, and not yet 20. Ana held a deep faith and was distraught with her daughter’s wayward irresponsibility, but working multiple jobs for various families from dawn through dark left no time to sentry her own. So, we hired her full time to help lessen the load.

“The bald fact is that the entire restaurant industry in America would close down overnight, would never recover, if current immigration laws were enforced quickly and thoroughly across the board.”
– Anthony Bourdain

The 2 women grew close; Alexandra and Ana. Both were shaped by challenging childhoods. They were smart and ambitious women, convinced that much better things were possible very far from home. For my wife, that meant a bolt from the Paris suburbs and an oppressive home life, west across an ocean and then a continent. For Ana, that meant an escape from grinding Guatemalan violence and poverty, north across a border and then a second.

Ana arranged for her father to try that perilous route as well, but his coyote couriers decided at the last moment, perhaps there was more to squeeze through ransom. Ana made the journey from San Francisco to Tijuana, where she swallowed her panic and stepped into a van with said kidnappers gunned up and threatening carnage. She didn’t have the money. She did bring what she could, perhaps half, and on her knees begged in tears to let her return to California with her ailing padre. They took every dime and anything else of value, then shoved them both out of the van. Alive, at least.

“A child on the other side of the border is no less worthy of love and compassion than my own child.”
– President Barrak Obama

Ana became family to us, as trusted with our kids and home as any loved abuela or tia. When we vacationed we took her with us. Not to watch the 3 rapscallions while the majestic couple frolicked and partied (Alexandra was a spendthrift who didn’t party, which explains how we afforded to buy a family home in San Francisco). But to gift Ana a few days of escape from the daily battles that consumed her life.

I think there are pictures of her in one of our old photo albums, waist deep in the warm waters off Poipu Beach in Kauai, staring wistfully out to the endless horizon, where the blue sea met the blue sky. On our final day of that trip Alexandra asked if she was eager to get back home. No, she said, no not at all, she never wanted this trip to end. She would just float in these calm Hawaiian waters forever if she could, free from it all.

Who could imagine depriving Ana of that dream?

Stephen Miller, Goebbels reincarnate, wants his scalps. Three thousand a day, and snap the fuck to it. Tom Homan, brownshirt-in-chief, is happy to execute. Sir, Yes Sir! Gardeners are tackled mid weed whack and leaf blow; day laborers corralled and zip-tied in Home Depot parking lots; visa seekers ambushed at their monthly immigration appointments. All are stunned and confused while cuffed, some punched and thrown to the ground, few get an explanation. And then disappeared. Inhumanity in the extreme, for your Fox viewing pleasure.

“Shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe?”
-President Thomas Jefferson

I think about Ana now, from the idyllic perch of my Provence apartment. Those pesky Magill tykes she chased around, fed, and held sleeping to her bosom late into the night, are now in their 20s. Alexandra and I divorced 10 years back, but still the closest of friends and allies. The Hawaiian family holidays are over.

I did nothing to merit my gender (male), skin tone (white), or place of birth (America). And those prized gifts have afforded me a great shot at life security, affluence, and self-realization. Ana and millions like her were gifted little, yet made my effort x10. Yes, border controls and a well regulated immigration system are modern necessities. But would a bit of humility and humanity be too much to ask?

Afterword

According to this 2025 report by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy:

  • For every 1 million undocumented immigrants who reside in the US, public services receive $8.9 billion in additional tax revenue. (They paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022.)
  • More than a third of these tax dollars fund programs – including Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance – that undocumented immigrants are barred from accessing.
  • In 40 of the 50 US states, undocumented immigrants pay higher state and local tax rates than the top 1 percent of households living within those borders.

Additionally,

  • About 46% of the Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or their children.
  • Almost 1 in 4 entrepreneurs in the US are immigrants.

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

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Suggested Song: Seamus, Pink Floyd
Suggested Drink: Brewdog Punk IPA

Chico bid his forever goodbyes this week. At 17, he’d had a great run. Chihuahuas can go 20 in a vacuum, but Chico was no bubble boy. Gutter pizza (any toppings), table scraps (any meal), festering roadkill (any species), and the occasional spilled beer. Anything on the ground was fair game. He had one impressively indomitable constitution.

Chico’s immunity to alimental peril likely stemmed from his destitute origins: an orphaned pup from the Dominican Republic hill country. The Sottak family had lost their much-loved black lab, leaving a hole in the family heart. A scruffy white street rat didn’t seem the obvious cure, but when offered, the parents (Mike and Toni) were outvoted by the daughters (Savannah and Lindsey), and Chico joined the clan.

Fresh off the boat and new to the family.

The Sottaks live a charmed life, at least through a charmed geography. San Francisco, Turks & Caicos Islands (where they adopted Chico), Aix-en-Provence (where they met your writer), and now Charleston. They are a social family with a lot of good friends weaving in and out of their lives. Chico was the through line that connected everyone through everywhere. Hey, how is Chico? That question started most greetings if months or years had passed.

In Aix, where we became good friends, it was bestowed upon me from time to time to dog sit. My feral cat Chloe loathed sharing her flat with this fur-ball Chihuahua. Chico hated the relentless stalking and menacing glares that made napping impossible. But despite the occasional flare-ups they mostly kept to their designated corners.

There was no better pet to carouse with for a single man in Provence. Never on leash, Chico was a tireless terrasse flâner and shameless seducer. The bartenders and restaurateurs knew him, chefs and bouchers gifting him prized nibbles and bones. He wasn’t averse to the soft lap of an attractive woman, straw sipping her Aperol Spritz on a summer evening and stroking his soft fur. Oh si mignon, le petit chien !

You can tell a lot about people by how they treat their pets. Some dote, some abuse, and some provide just the perfect balance of love, support, and independence. I grew up on a farm and our dogs and cats came and went as they pleased. Sometimes they’d sleep in the cardboard box in laundry room, sometimes they’d disappear for a few days. In the freeze of the Pennsylvania winter, the dog and cat would grudgingly climb into that box together. Damn it’s cold.

Chico, poolside in Provence.

The Sottaks are my kind of pet people. There was a lot of love in the Chico home, from all 4 of them. Their gentleness with and loyalty to the dog reflected the same manner they treat everyone in their orbit. Perhaps it’s why I feel blessed to remain in it. And also blessed to have been with them during this difficult week. Mike and Toni have been staying in Aix for the past month, and Chico picked this period start the hard slide. There are worse places to expire than Provence, eating well, drinking well, sitting poolside or on some attractive woman’s lap. Another Apero Spritz monsieur. Just going to relax here for the moment.

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

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Suggested Song: Only God Can Judge Me, 2Pac
Suggested Drink: Cristal champagne (On ice at Club 55, Saint Tropez)

Listen to this essay:

Inertia (noun): The property of a body that resists any change to its uniform motion; equivalent to its mass.
– Encyclopedia Britannica

Sean Combs is giving a masterclass in the art of total brand destruction. What took 30 years to carefully assemble has suffered a rapid unscheduled disassembly in just a few weeks of testimony. The alpha silverback who was swimming with women turns out to be voyeuristic cuck ogling from the corner, … with severe anger issues. Shakespearean in its tragedy.

The Diddy Circus was built on three rings of over-indulgence, unaccountability, and a fatally-inflated sense of self. It took just one errant spark – the infamous hotel hallway beatdown – to set the that big tent aflame. Still, none of us are saints, at least none in my crowd. Where some see a morality play, I see a cautionary tale. Be humble and play small ball with one’s peccadillos.

Flywheels operate on the principles of inertial energy and Combs got caught in a big flywheel of bad behavior. The more mass they carry and faster they spin, the greater energy is required to slow them down. His was a truly mighty mass at hypersonic velocity. Too much money paired with too little introspection can be a lethal cocktail. The Brooklyn Jail is a poor place to ponder the physics of life. But I’m guessing he’s quickly up to speed on the laws of personal inertial energy.

Flywheels and the gyroscopic moment: MITCalc

We’ve all been on that wheel, just not with P mass at Diddy spin. Some of our flywheels can be as innocuous as a bowl of M&Ms with Netflix. Once you get started; damn, where did all those go? Some can be more destructive, like a bad gambling habit or substance issues. Okay, just an hour at the slots or a single pint of beer, then I’m out of here. Good luck with that.

I’ve stopped kidding myself with the one-and-I’m-done fantasy when out with good friends. If I really need to avoid that flywheel, then I really need to avoid those friends, at least for that evening. This works, mostly. Depends on the time of day and month of year. It’s summer in Provence. You try staying indoors.

I have no sympathy for Combs, but neither do I delight in his demise. Mostly I wonder why a man of his stature didn’t have better friends or minders. Dude, just wind it back a bit. A few years ago I was suffering through an unhealthy relationship and embarrassing myself badly. My inner circle lured me to O’Sullivan’s Pub one evening, sat me down and suggested, gently but firmly, that I pull my shit together. I did. God bless them.

Combs will be pardoned by our Grifter in Chief. With an estimated net worth of $1 billion, he has more than enough for the presidential pay-to-play. But he’s done. That bad boy alpha is a masturbating beta. The confident ladies’ man is just another jealous wife beater. The golden glow has turned to coal dust. Combs may again vacation on Turks & Caicos or Saint Tropez in a mega-yacht, but every stroll through town will draw the stares of disgust he’ll understand well: fucking loser. Money can buy extravagance and Cristal champagne, but not respect, and definitely not self-respect. Spin your flywheels with care.

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

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Suggested Song: Easy to be Hard, from the soundtrack of Hair.
Suggested Drink: Cup of Kindness: Ceylon tea, vodka, pineapple syrup, passionfruit purée, rambutan juice.

Bedside manner (noun): A person’s manner when dealing with others.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Chloé died in December. She had put up with me and a rotation of the kids for 14 years, in the same apartment on rue Manuel in Aix-en-Provence. Our relationship could get strained, but I did love that cat’s presence in the home, and she appreciated my reliable catering service. The final day was blue.

Displays of empathy

Our vet has a magical way with animals. I made only a couple of appointments with him through the years, as Chloé would fight tooth and switchblade claw against getting in that red plastic travel box. Oven mitts were required to scoop her up and I would still take some bloody nicks from those flailing paws of furry. For the short walk through town she’d be wailing a lament so defiant and intense that everyone on the street turned to stare; that evil man is torturing this sweet kitty! But once on the vet’s table she was as calm and compliant as a med school cadavor to his prods and pokes.

Chloé keeping guard on the courtyard, on a warmer summer day in Provence.

Chloé’s kidneys were failing and there was little to be done. The vet ran some tests and kept her for the day, and when I returned that evening he laid out the options. When I decided to put her down the vet concurred, with a bedside manner of incredible tenderness and empathy, as if the decision was as difficult for him as me. He left the exam room to prepare the injection but gave us as much time alone as desired, despite the late hour. I stroked Chloé’s sedated head and reminisced through her greatest hits of wayward behavior: the digs and sudden scratches; the piddled blankets and ruined furniture; the mad bolts for our building’s basement. Damn it Chloé, I’ll miss you. Then, a deciding shot and she was gone.

It wasn’t easy to bid Chloé adieu, but the vet’s soft bedside manner eased the grief. It struck me, walking home that evening with the empty carrier, that his heartfelt display of emotional intelligence was increasingly rare in today’s world. Acts of kindness and compassion are considered reflections of weakness. Inflictions of cruelty and callous indifference signs of strength.

Displays of cruelty

The most vulnerable are suffering the greatest. In Gaza, almost 18,000 children have been killed in the past 16 months and that small sandy strip “is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history,” according to the United Nations. These horrors are rationalised with a dismissive well they started it shrug of indifference.

In the US, massive “soft sided” internment camps are being planned to contain tens of thousands of immigrant families while their cases are reviewed. For many parents the options will be (1) leave this land of promise as a unit and deprive their children of hope and opportunity, much less personal safety, or (2) leave the kids on American soil, to be raised by relatives or put up for adoption, and suffer unbearable separation, perhaps permanently. This nightmarish choice is being casually swatted away with a well, that’s their call shrug of indifference.

Spirit of America, by Norman Rockwell

The bluntness with which men like Itamar Ben-Gvir, Stephen Miller, and Tom Homan can dispel with any hint of person reflection and humanity is staggering. The peace and love idealism of the ‘60s died at Altamont, folks. Move the f*ck on. (Google it.)

I’m a weak man. I see a young girl crying out for her even younger brother on the evening news and tear up. Watching a family frog marched out of their home, into a van, and away from the years of memories and hopes that had fuelled their American dream; this crushes me as well.

My Scots-Irish immigrant grandfather gave my dad the most precious of gifts: the possibility of a bountiful life. And my parents, in turn, shared this blessing with me. I made something of it, and want everyone on the planet to equally have that chance. This is naïve, I know. There will always be suffering, I know. Life ain’t faire, I know. I accept these inequities, but can take a page from our vet’s playbook and at least treat those less blessed with humility and compassion. This makes a difference and costs me nothing, just a bit of gentle bedside manner.

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

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Suggested Song: With a Little Help From My Friends (as performed by Joe Cocker)
Suggested Drink: Charleston 75: Bourbon, St. Germain, Citrus, Sparkling Rosé.

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
Proverbs 17:17

Birthdays are fun milestones to celebrate when younger; pesky reminders to commiserate when older. Family and close friends are welcome allies in both cases.

Friends

We gathered in Charleston this past weekend to celebrate a friend’s 60th. We, being a collection of good friends who’ve fêted this man through the decades. I wrote about his 50th ten years ago in an essay titled All The Fishes in the Sea, and looking forward to the next happening in 2035. He pulls in a crowd.

Decade birthdays offer a nice span for reconnecting. Enough time passes for real change, but not so much as to trigger amnesia. Who are you again? I have a high school reunion this fall and doubt I’ll recognize anyone. With my hippy days long faded, they’ll be stumped by this bald pate as well. It’s been 40 years since I last communed with the high school coterie. A lot of water under that home-town bridge.

Mike’s circle hales from a kaleidoscope of fascinating backgrounds and beautiful locales, which eases the decision to book the flight and join. Creatives, entrepreneurs, business types of every stripe, lawyers, bar owners and restaurateurs, dreamers, all coming from across the pond, around the country, and up from the Caribbean. A lively gang of rapscallions and bon vivants. Damn good fun.

Birthday boy Mike Sottak in the center chair.

A lot has been published about the harmful effects of alcohol recently, and a few at the birthday bash were running on no-octane, 0.0. The rest of us were imbibing along a spectrum of one-and-done to mumble-and-stumble. I’m trying to be more conscious about my intake this year and considering longer-term options. But this celebration didn’t seem like the time to hazard sobriety. Madness prevailed as we slow rolled through Charleston’s assortment of rooftop lounges and back street bars over the weekend. Moments like these are best spent with those allergic to incriminating photos and judicious with camera phones. Delete, delete, oh definitely delete.

Family

I stayed with my two sisters in Charlotte during this trip, and one was having a decade birthday of her own. (We’ll not discuss which particular decade.) It’s an easy drive from there to the coast for a weekend bash. A heavy dose of billboard porn keeps you awake on Interstate 26 across South Carolina. Displays for personal injury lawyers (just dial 999-9999!) and soul saving dominate. God bless America and ambulance chasers. My soul was ripe for revival after the weekend bacchanalia, but no legal services were required (somewhat amazingly).

My sisters have beautiful homes in charming towns north of Charlotte. Restaurants and cafes abound, people are friendly in that uniquely Southern way (what will it be, darling?), and the brothers-in-law enjoy their wine. All this to say, I feel spoiled when visiting.

I don’t see Joanie and Sue nearly enough and I appreciate them even more when together. Despite the distance we are a close clan, those 2 and my brother and me. If your life is filled with trusted, engaging friends and loving family, you are blessed. I am blessed. I never take this for granted. Ma vie est belle.

Fools

I can be a fool. I procrastinate, navel gaze, spread gossip, go hermit, waste money, inflate achievements, drink too much, and … what am I missing? Perhaps billboard Jesus will consider a pardon (they’re the rage these days), but that’s a mighty ask. Mercifully, I have friends and family who not only embrace my virtues but forgive my sins, and what more can one celebrate in life than that? Amen.

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

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Suggested Song: Hard Candy Christmas, Carol Hall (and sung by Reba McEntire).
Suggested Drink: Chateau LaCoste NOOH sparkling rosé, non-alcohol.

Big resolution pledges.
Big travel plans.
Big work ambitions.
Big fitness commitments.
Big hobby launches.

My cat never made big plans, and she seemed to enjoy life just fine.

Chloé at my bedroom window, making absolutely no plans at all.

The new year is about to break over the horizon. I’ve got big plans for 2025; I’m sure you do as well. It’s fun to imagine where we will be in another 12 months if these campaigns find achievement. Some may, some will not, but experience tells me it’s not the big things from the coming 12 months that I’ll remember most fondly. Ten favorite memories of 2024 are a collection of small moments shared with family or friends. They include, in no certain order:

  1. Placing a small vase of tulips on my daughter’s bedside table, just ahead of her visit home (well, her old home in Aix-en-Provence).
  2. Hearing the cork pop from a first bottle of Prosecco, opened by our waitress late morning at seaside in Italy, with a couple of close friends.
  3. Surveying endless rows of sun-splashed lavender bushes folding up and over the rolling Provence hills in hot, sunny July.
  4. Sharing thoughts about life with a young woman from Hong Kong, while in a 30-minute line for a paper plate of fried kway teow mee from Outram Park in Singapore’s Chinatown.
  5. An impromptu sharing of my umbrella with an Italian teenager, in a sudden heavy downpour in Ospedaletti, then talking about his travels to the US. Signore, per favore!
  6. Staring up at a large, original Banksy (The Mild Mild West), painted high on a wall and just around the corner from a friend’s home in Bristol.
  7. Comforting my cat Chloé last month with strokes and memories before the vet returned with the final, deciding injection. She survived 3 kids, frisky dogs, and a torrent of late-night dinner parties through the years, but couldn’t beat old age.
  8. Singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with my 3 kids in the bleachers at Oracle Park, and watching the SF Giants lose on a beautiful June afternoon. (Not a good year for the boys in orange and black.)
  9. Listening to Ermonela Jaho sing Puccini’s heart-tugging “Un Bel Di Vedremo” from Madame Butterfly, during the summer opera festival in Aix. No tears, damn it, no tears!
  10. Leafing through a photo album of memories with my 89 year-old Uncle John in Quebec, hearing tales of prized cars, old flames, and a perilous romance with a spicy mafia doll in Montreal. What a life.
The Mild Mild West, by Banksy. In Bristol, England.

I sit here now, in late December, plotting a 2025 of stretch goals and travel destinations. Some might even happen, and won’t that be amazing? I’ll be equally alert to the everyday little things that keep the joy ballast topped up. Unexpected moments with friends and family, and the beauty of nature. I’m blessed to live in the sun dappled south of France, with god’s greatest hits at every turn.

I’m wishing you hope and happiness for the year ahead. May your big plans come through, and those small joys provide a scrapbook of great memories for year end.

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

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Suggested Song: Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, Radio Head.
Suggested Drink: Weird & Wonderful cocktail: vodka, Saint-Germain liqueur, lemon juice, tonic water (ChatGPT vows for its authenticity, drinker beware!)

Listen to this essay:

“I am not eccentric. It’s just that I am more alive than most people.
I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.”
– Edith Sitwell

I was listening to an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with the actor Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor today (click here to go there). I’ll pass on that, I initially thought, but so happy I didn’t. She comes from a fascinating Mississippi upbringing and shares that she felt weird as a child, just knew that somehow, in some ways, she was different than others; really different. I got that.

The term “weird” has suddenly taken on cultural significance in the current election. Tim Walz pegged JD Vance and his handmaiden take on family policy as just plain weird. Pundits from the right huffed back that Walz’s son was the truly weird one, for tearing up while his dad accepted the VP nomination.  While these attempts to own the term reveal a lot about each party’s identity, I’d prefer that it not be hijacked at all by 2024’s political, … weirdness.

A very proud Gus Walz embracing his father at the 2024 Democratic Convention.

Weird (adjective): of strange or extraordinary character.
– Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I like weird people of the Merriam-Webster sort; the odd and the unconventional. A few of my most treasured friends fit that tag to a tee. The uncomfortably unfiltered, the guardedly mysterious, the unmoored pirate, the avid hedonist, the ever evolving. Some are my close pals, and some are their spouses or even kids (the Bill Magill family plan for friends). All thrive along uniquely colorful spectrums that defy measure and metric. All can drive one a bit mad with their eccentricities and bluntness. But none are boring, and there is inestimable value in that entertaining quality.

Friends will attest to my nuttiness and it’s differing manifestations. I’ve always been introspective and easily distracted, a navel gazer, which can be a healthy thing, and then not so much. My dad would tell the story of 12 year-old Bill sent to our lower field on a summer day to weed the potato patch. An hour later, on his tractor, Dad passed me cross-legged in a pasture of wildflowers, spellbound by the nature all around: the colorful flowers and buzzing bees and crawling beetles and soaring birds above, the warm breeze and smell of Central Pennsylvania farm country. I remember that moment well, waving to my dad and him nodding back, high up on his red International Harvester. He just shook his head and drove on. We all had a good laugh over dinner that evening.

Boredom was a common affliction for kids in small town America, pre-internet and cell phones. I would look for distraction through creativity. I had no talent for painting but found a groove in the graphic arts. Specifically, projecting images onto tee shirts, tracing the outlines with a charcoal pencil, then acrylic painting in the details. Album covers offered great inspiration. One of the cool jocks in high school once commented that my tee shirts were kind of crazy and would I do one for him. Later that day we passed in the hall and he cancelled. Magill, your shirts are pretty weird actually. YOU are pretty weird actually. My tribe of teenage friends didn’t mind being considered weird. We did hate being considered boring. That would have been a rusty shiv to the teenage heart.

Graceful Electric Eel in Deep Ocean | Colorful Corals & Fish
Electric eel, by unknown artist in Easy-Peasy.ai

Gus Walz’s unrestrained emotional display during the Democratic Convention reminded me of the beauty of weirdness and the singular splendor alive in us all. Edith Sitwell’s electric eel. Each other’s unique kookiness. Suppress that? Oh hell no. Lean into that. Show us your colors, paint that shirt with a palette only you posses. Get weird.

remember me in blazing shades
of indigo and vivid red, not grey
I never want to fade to grey
(From Strange, off my 2018 album Last Night at the Ha-Ra.)

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

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Suggested Song: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana.
Suggested Drink: Sea Breeze cocktail: vodka, cranberry juice, grapefruit juice.

Listen to this essay.

“Smells are the fallen angels of the senses.”
Helen Keller

Then

US 50 runs the width of America, from Sacramento to Ocean City, Maryland. Every July my family would join this historic highway near Annapolis to make our summer sojourn to the sea. The towering Chesapeake Bay Bridge was a prominent midway point, and from there we’d pass south through Maryland’s Eastern Shore to Cambridge, and then due east. “One hour to Ocean City” my mom would say, and we’d all light up with the tingle of holiday anticipation.

What I remember most about these drives are the smells, in particular the briny aroma of the Atlantic Ocean that would tease us over those final 30 miles into OC. Our provenance was Central Pennsylvania farm country, with a July bouquet of shucked corn, cow manure, and farm machinery. I was a lucky child to have this upbringing, but eager to leave it behind for a week of waves and boardwalk adventure. On the long approach to OC we’d start passing a stream billboards advertising beachside hotels and restaurants (Philips Crab House: the Best Jimmies in OC!), the sky would assume a blue shimmering haze, and then the first waves of salty air would work through the vents of my dad’s 1960s blue Buick wagon.  All thoughts of home, gone.

Now

My days in Provence are also marked by a broad palette of smells, particularly rich through the summer months. The August stalls at the daily markets are full of ripe local peaches, apricots, and plums. It was strawberries in June and mountains of cherries in July. The figs and Cavaillon cantaloupes are so full of sugar now their skins crack and honeybees hover. Bunches of bright green mint sit among the fresh coriander and parsley at every stall, and lavender, harvested last month, is arranged in bouquets wrapped in twine or offered in small cloth sacks perfect for winter closets or dresser drawers. It can be sensorially overpowering.

Cavaillon melons at the local market.

This rich symphony of perfumes will fade in the fall, yielding to the more subtle scents of Mediterranean herbs – thyme, rosemary, bay leaves – and gourds halved or quartered for your Sunday soup. But it will be a fade, not a fold. I swear the blind can navigate Provence, at least the markets, on scent alone year around.

If I leave Provence someday it’s the smells that will most linger in memory. I don’t take them for granted, but I also don’t grant them enough significance in my calculus of happiness and place. The sight of lavender fields in June; the sound of cigale hordes (cicadas) in the hot summer countryside; the tang of local olives and chilled rosé at apéro hour, and the laughter of friends sharing said apéro; these things are unique to Provence and core to its charm. But it’s the fragrance of life here that I find most enchanting.

You

Are there scents that bring back your favorite memories? Are there smells uniquely symbolic to the region in which you live now? I ask you not to take these for granted. You may want to seek them out for a quick trip down memory lane. My dad (of the big blue Buick) lost his sense of smell around retirement age. He was not one to complain, but the enjoyment of my mom’s delicious casseroles was forever dimmed, as was his savoring of a ripe, juicy tomato picked from the family vine in July and sampled between the rows. Wow, that is a tomato!  Now, go out and have a good sniff!

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence

on by

Suggested Song: Impromptu #3, Franz Schubert. (Performed by an 84 year-old Vladimir Horowitz.)
Suggested Drink: Peroni Nastro Azzurro, a light Italian lager.

Listen to this essay.

Impromptu (adjective): made, done, or formed on or as if on the spur of the moment.
– Merriam Webster Dictionary

The weather was fowl but we set off nonetheless. Our weekend in Italy wouldn’t be framed in the usual routine – eat, drink, swim, doze, and repeat through the day – but there were no doubts about fun and finding lots of it. We always do. As per custom, Ospedaletti was the destination, the Petit Royal our hotel, and Playa79 our favored bistro upon the beach. Or plans would change en route. The only plan was no committed plan, and that was also per custom. We may end up in Cannes or Genoa. Will this old gimpy Fiat even get us across the border? It was all very impromptu.

The weekend came together spontaneously, as the best often do. One of us in from the States for a bit of work, the other 2 changing plans last minute to accommodate the opening. A room at the Petit Royal? Yes, it was confirmed available, yet ambiguous in true Italian fashion. No Signore, no full name, credit card number, nor contact information required; the room for Party of Bill will be ready. If arriving after 8 pm (we would be) the desk will be closed (it was), but you can call this number (we did) and a desk clerk will show up (jolly and drunk). Beautifully impromptu.

The charming (and cheap) Petit Royal in yellow.

The village of Ospedaletti was 2 steps below its usual sleepy pace. It was the final ski weekend in the Italian Alps and the grey drizzle along the sea sealed the choice for many. By 9 pm most trattorias in town were lowering the curtains, but we did manage a late table at a quiet family bistro. Stunning in all respects: the food, the wine, the prices, and our charming cameriera, who informed us, apologetically, that we wouldn’t find any places open for after-dinner drinks in town that evening. With a dramatic pull of her index finger across the throat, she emphasized the fact: Ospedaletti è morto. Could we order a bottle to go? Naturalmente. And she volunteered 3 glasses from behind the bar, plus corkscrew. All were placed on loan in a travel bag, with an additional bottle as backup, and off we went. Impromptu.

The next morning was cloudy but dry. We took that as a win. The day would be spent in time-honored Mediterranean fashion: beachside table, ice bucket on autofill, revolving plates of fresh things from the sea, and endless chat about fascinating things of no real significance. Except one thing: a manuscript lifted from a beach bag, with reading proffered.

The mixed seafood plate at Playa79.

We are all creatives in this group; one of us famously, the other 2 aspiringly. We share our prototypes, listening to this song or hearing that chapter or getting a look at a painting in work. Opinions are given with kindness but honesty. Changes are made or not. It’s a process of mutual critique based on years of friendship and trust.

“Only write the book you can’t avoid writing. There are plenty of books already.”
– Salman Rushdie (to his students at Emory College)

The surprise draft was a mesmeric read. The easy cadence paired with the cycle of waves lapping gently at the sand, just 30 feet or so away. Add in the sea air and sparkling prosecco, and an intoxicating gestalt of late morning Mediterranean indulgence floated over the table, blissfully. Signora, another plate of fritto misto per favore. No, he won’t avoid writing this novel, our prosaist most impromptu.

The fritto misto plate at Playa79.

And the weekend continued on much in that fashion. Sun, then sudden downpours, and sharing umbrellas with local teenagers. Dodging the rain with impromptu piccolo beers here and nibbles there. Varying states of hedonistic consciousness: epicurean; bacchanalian; Mediterranean. And a final impulsive decision to pack up early to share a final meal in Nice’s Old Town.

The moral of this story? I’m wrestling with that. (Opinions welcome.) Perhaps, it’s my belief in the value of embracing impulsiveness and spontaneity in life. In the pursuit of greater creativity, inquisitiveness, and discovery, reacting to events as they unfold in unpredictable ways can push us beyond comfort zones, and that’s a healthy thing. Of course, when embarking on unplanned adventures, in 3rd languages, with gimpy cars, to sleepy seaside villages, traveling with trusted company equally adept at the unexpected and impromptu is essential.

So what great adventures are you un-planning?

Bill Magill
Aix-en-Provence