Category: Happiness & Health

The merits of happiness and staying healthy.

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Suggested Song: Give A Little Bit, Supertramp
Suggested Drink: Land of Happy cocktail: gin, balsamic shrub, Prosecco, lemon wedge.

I was at an Eid al-Fitr celebration in San Francisco this past weekend. It is a Muslim fete at the end of Ramadan, the festival of breaking the fast. There was a joyous scene bubbling along Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin, an immigrant neighborhood bordering the Civic Center where I live. Bouncing houses and shawarma popups, ethnic music and dancing, olive oils from Jordan and pottery from Palestine, an open air clothing bazar selling all manner of niqabs and hijabs and abayas (I’m learning). There were also numerous community organizations offering free services and looking for volunteers. I’m considering my look in a crossing guard vest.

Eid is to be honored through acts of kindness and generosity, of sharing meals with others and being charitable to one’s family and those less fortunate. Other religions have similar traditions: the Jewish Purim, Buddhist Vesak, and Christmas, of course. These benevolent rituals are effective happiness bombs for their followers. It is widely documented that acts of kindness and generosity are some of the lowest hanging fruit in the blessed tree of positive vibes. We get a much greater emotional boost from giving than getting. (For an insightful read on the proven power of generosity, enjoy this paper from the Greater Good Science Center.)

I caught up with an old friend last week, over an afternoon beer at the SF Ferry Building. His wife has been volunteering in a hospice care unit since both parents passed away recently, one shortly after the other. That was quite the emotional hit, understandably, and this act of giving was helping backstop the slide. My sister Cathy too used to volunteer at a Ronald McDonald House, which helps families in need of accommodations and support near pediatric hospitals. Her time spent with children, some terminally ill, could be trying but deeply rewarding. She had her dark moments, as do we all, and this was the best antidote. Cathy was a giver, as is my friend’s wife Susan.

My first 3 months back in San Francisco were spent at the big blue house on 6th Avenue and Irving Street in the Inner Sunset. I was offered a furnished studio there, at no cost, because I needed a temporary place while looking for my next apartment. How did this happen, to enjoy a charming unit in a beautiful historic home in a trendy neighborhood in one of America’s most expensive cities, … for free? Barbara Oleksiw. She’s a giver.

Aside from the large toy library of dolls, games, puzzles and other things Barbara organises and sets out daily for neighborhood families – take what you want and give back what you no longer play with – Barbara offers a community bulletin board, free monthly knife sharpening, and live musical entertainment during street fairs from her sizeable garden. While I was living there, Barbara invited a farmers market bakery to give away their unsold croissants and other delights from her street corner post market, and personally bought 50 roasted Costco chickens to donate to families in need one weekend. She just set up a table with a few friends and gave them away. Inspiring.

Barbara Oleksiw’s Big Blue House in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset.

My mother was also an inexhaustible source of kindness and compassion, and I was blessed. She looked for the best in everyone, never (and I do mean never) criticised, sought calm and compromise in all situations, and was effusive with her smiles and complements and gifts. On the give versus take meter she bent the needle, like Barbara.

The brilliant and the boors

Some people are brilliant suns and others boorish black holes. Most of us bounce in between; good days and bad. Then there are the deeply deprived and aggrieved, wholly committed to sharing their miseries.

Stephen Miller is a fine sample from that angry set of folks stewing at the sewer end of the give versus take spectrum. Let’s take a look. Everything Miller says, every scowl he casts, every immigrant community he demeans, reveals a man deeply unhappy with his lot in life: white and raised upper middle class in sunny Santa Monica, California, a graduate of prestigious Duke University (in just as sunny North Carolina), and political annoyance suddenly elevated to giddy levels of influence and power. The contempt Miller holds for all who contest his zealous beliefs is expressed in a twisted sneer that chills the soul and sucks the warmth out of all in proximity. Think Death Eaters of Harry Potter fame, or the hunched Max Schreck from the 1922 film Nosferatu. Miller is a taker.

So what’s the point here, … (it’s rosé hour, this needs to wrap up). Our place on the give or take spectrum is something over which we have agency. No one can be Mother Theresa 24/7, but we choose to call our better angels or send forth our demons at will. That Winnie was one of the happiest people on earth and also spent her every waken hour with the haloed doers of good deeds does not prove causation. That Stephen Miller presents as one of the angriest people you’d be unfortunate enough to meet and commits his every drop of sulfurous energy squeezing hope from all those in his orbit does not prove causation, but boy is that correlation compelling. Along what part of that spectrum do you want live? I think I know the answer. You know mine too.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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Suggested Song: Everybody Eats When They Come To My House, Cab Calloway.
Suggested Drink: Any fermented grape worthy of your own home communion.

Communion (noun): intimate fellowship or rapport.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

I had been eating out a lot since moving back to San Francisco. It’s fun to let someone else do the cooking from time to time, especially in a gastro mecca like SF, but I get great joy from tinkering in the kitchen. I also love to host. Sharing a home-cooked meal prepared with love for close friends who matter most turns good into great on all counts: the meal, the evening, and the company. It’s the power of communion.

My old kitchen kit arrived from Aix-en-Provence about a week ago, filling out the inventory of pots, pans, utensils, and gadgets I’d been picking up daily from Macy’s, Target, Cliff’s Variety, and other purveyors of fine homeware within a walk from my downtown flat. I’m back to roasting this and braising that while enjoying a glass or 3 of wine (darn it’s expensive here), while Coltrane or Chopin provides an evening soundtrack. Meals out are great, but give me the homespun zen of an evening encounter with a kitchen counter heaped high with fresh produce. What’s even better? Sharing the creation that’s all a’bubble on the stovetop with others.

The kitchenwares aisle at Cliff’s Variety in San Francisco.

I met a lot of fascinating people in Provence. Like Paris, Aix is a melting pot of Gaullist natives and multi-generational immigrants, plus a heaping dose of expats from all points on the globe. Reflecting on my time there, I realize that the closest friendships made where with people who communed on some evening at 7 rue Manuel (damn, I miss that place), enjoying (or suffering through) an alchemy of ingredients from the daily marché and favored boucherie. I would promise the starters and mains, and everyone else pitched in with breads, cheeses, charcuterie, desserts, and wine. The quintessential French dinner party.

(Also upon reflection [over a cold pilsner on the terrace of Anina in Hayes Valley yesterday afternoon]), it dawned on me that dinner communions chez Bill (the cause) begat the deepest and most durable friendships (the effect), and in that order. I didn’t just invite close friends to dinner parties. No, it’s that the people who came for dinner parties often turned into my closest friends. And this was quite a wide-ranging ensemble of ages, interests, talents, peccadillos, and kinks. Always lively, never boring, and rarely ending early.

What is it about these dinner rituals at home that build connections more deeply than an hour or two dining in a restaurant? I think it’s the shared service. In a restaurant we all sit while orders are taken, dishes delivered, silverware replaced, plates removed, wine glasses topped off, and check presented. Off you go now. This communion is elegant, organized, proficient, and performative. Dinners out can be wildly pleasurable, but not deeply communal.

A few close friends joining for a meal at 7 rue Manuel.

In our homes we serve each other, pass around plates, hand each other bread, fill each other’s glasses, forget something or other still steaming on the stove top, stain the table cloth, and then take turns bussing everything back to the sink where clean-up is shared (a couple of volunteers scrubbing and rinsing while the rest of us stand around drinking wine.) This communion is gloriously messy, unscripted, and authentic. As are the deepest relationships, right?

If you find yourself again changing cities or countries or continents you’ll want to find a local tribe. An increasing mountain of evidence shows that strong social connections are fundamental to longer healthspans, particularly with mental health. As we get older this can be more challenging. Consider laying out a dinner table for fun folks you meet here or there, with whom there seems to be a curious connection at first contact. This offer of generosity, this communion ensemble, may plant the seed for friendships that keep you happy and healthy through the many years ahead, … or until you again pull up roots.

Bill Magill
San Francisco

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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

on by

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

on by

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