window seat

I Get the Aisle

I Get The Aisle Seat

I'm turning 63 on Christmas Day, which feels like it should mean something. The math suggests I'm closer to the end than the beginning. Fuck math.

This summer, I'm moving to Portugal. Permanently. To a town on the northern coast I passed through once on a cycling trip. I don't speak Portuguese beyond obrigado and whatever I can butcher with my Pimsleur and Babbel lessons. I'll be the only American I know within 50 miles.

I lived in Germany during my Air Force years. Back then, I was surrounded by Americans on base, insulated by military infrastructure, and young enough that I never considered consequences. It was all just moving forward, even if it was without direction. This is different. This is choosing to be the foreigner for whatever time I have left. To wake up not understanding the conversations around me. To be the guy who doesn't know which bin the recycling goes in.

At 63, I'm supposed to be thinking about continuity, stability, proximity to friends and family. Instead, I'm researching puppy charter flights (yes, that's a real thing) so Newt can have his own seat in a cabin with nine other dogs flying to Europe. And I'm thinking about whether my camera gear fits in the overhead.

I've worked my whole life for someone else, helping create shit that people didn't need but were convinced they did. The last few years, I've been building something that's actually mine. A photography practice that looks nothing like what people expect.

There's something fitting about spending your sixties making art about impermanence and memory while simultaneously uprooting your entire life. About choosing blur and motion over sharpness and clarity, both in the viewfinder and in real life. I've built a practice around letting go of literal representation, trusting that the feeling matters more than the facts.

Portugal feels like the same leap. I don’t know exactly what I'm walking into. I do know that staying put, doing the safe thing, the expected thing, would be the sharpest, clearest path to someplace I don't want to be. The only real freedom left is deciding I'm not too old to start over in a place where nobody knows me—where the only thing my neighbor cares about is whether I say good morning in something resembling Portuguese.

Maybe I'm just stubborn enough to believe that age is only relevant if you're trying to conform to someone else's timeline. Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself of that.

Either way, I'll find out in Viana do Castelo.

All Newt cares about is that he gets a window seat and a walk on the beach every morning.

P.S. — If you've made a similar leap later in life, or if you think I've lost my mind, I'd love to hear about it. Leave a comment or drop me a note through the contact page. I'll read it from Portugal, while trying to figure out how to order a black coffee, no sugar, please.