Love notes from Siel is a weekly newsletter from Siel, who’s currently traveling around the world. If you love it, subscribe for free.
Dear friend —
Traveling during a pandemic has its upsides and downsides. Upside: Places are less crowded! Downside: COVID!
By COVID I’m referring not just to the virus itself but also the complicated tangle of rules the virus has spawned. Theoretically, the rules of international travel should be simple, or at least uniform. We’re talking about a single virus after all, albeit with multiple variants. Yet in practice, every country’s taken COVID as an opportunity to show off its unique personality.
Want to fly back to the U.S.? Then you’ll need to test negative for COVID no more than a day before travel — but no need to get vaccinated so long as you’re an American citizen. Want to fly to Spain? Well, in that case you don’t need a negative COVID test, but you’ll need to have been fully vaccinated, with the most recent shot received between 14 to 270 days before travel. Want to fly to Mexico? That’s easy, because you need neither vaccinations nor a COVID test.
I’m all for keeping people safe — I’m just confounded by the choose-your-own-adventure randomness of the rules. And things get complicated really fast if you’re, say, an American citizen who’s planning to fly from Mexico to Spain, like me.
Like a responsible world citizen I’d gotten vaccinated as early as I could, receiving my second Moderna shot back in April. This meant that if I wanted to fly to Spain, I had to get a booster — but I couldn’t get one in Mexico because I don’t have a Clave Única de Registro de Población, a.k.a. a Mexican social security number. So I had to make a special flight to the U.S. to get boosted — for which I had to take a pre-flight COVID test, which I would not have needed to take had I been able to fly directly to Spain —
Anyway. Last weekend I found myself back in Los Angeles for a whirlwind of a weekend: booster, brunches, a much-needed haircut, lots of napping due to the booster’s side effects, the FedExing of my work laptop back to my former company —
Because yes, I’ve quit my job. Again.
Why do I quit jobs so often? I’ve been pondering this question a lot the last few weeks. Each of my quits has been precipitated by its own unique set of circumstances, so perhaps the string of them doesn’t necessarily point to anything worrying about me as a person in particular — yet I am, admittedly, the common denominator.
That said, I can’t say I’ve ever regretted quitting a job — while I do have regrets about jobs I didn’t quit soon enough. And I’m so much happier now, with more time to write and read and dance —
How can I make these happy times last? I think many of us must be wondering this, since record numbers of Americans have, like me, quit their jobs. Evidence of the labor crunch is visible even on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. When I went shopping Monday afternoon, multiple stores were randomly closed with a “we’ll be back in a few minutes” sign tacked to the door. This wasn’t a thing pre-pandemic!
I wonder if some of us, or really, many of us, are just not meant for full time work, or really, for much work at all, if we define work as labor performed primarily for financial recompense. It’s not simply that I’m lazy, it’s that the type of “work” for which I do have an eager, tireless constitution — writing moody prose, dancing a passable salsa with strangers — are not activities that are financially remunerative in a capitalist society.
I realize these anxieties of mine are extraordinarily privileged. Many in the world don’t have the luxury of quitting jobs they don’t like. Many can’t even find paid labor despite a willingness to take on unpleasant, backbreaking work. In Mexico City, to which I returned on Tuesday, I pass by a number of people everyday who by all appearances, are living very tenuous lives. They look dusty and exhausted, walking the streets imploring passersby to purchase sundry trinkets — woven baskets, plasticky pens, individually wrapped bits of candy — that people occasionally buy more out of pity than need. And of course there are many straight-up panhandlers here too, as there are in Los Angeles —
I’m falling in love with Mexico City though. It’s beautiful, rich with trees, vibrant with the walkability of New York without its garbage or high prices or sudden snowstorms. But I’ll only be here for two more weeks, at which point Spain will deem me acceptable to pass through its borders —
Perhaps one day I’ll find answers to my questions about money, labor, and work. For now, I’m floating along, writing, dancing, and vaguely thinking about freelancing again.
Love,
Siel
Three links you might love:
Checking out of hustle culture. “I have been trying to separate out hustle for hustle's sake, hustle because it gets you somewhere, hustle because you think you'll wake up tomorrow feeling like you're further down the road, and then learning how to do the work because the doing of the work makes you the kind of person you're supposed to be.”
A close look at the new(ish) crystal meth. “Crystal meth is in some ways a metaphor for our times—times of anomie and isolation, of paranoia and delusion, of communities coming apart.”
Did you know we don’t age at the same rate? “The slowest ager gained only 0.4 ‘biological years’ for each chronological year in age; in contrast, the fastest-aging participant gained nearly 2.5 biological years for every chronological year.”
Hi Siel,
Interesting, as always. One thing about the closed shops on the Promenade. My son works at a store at a mall in the Valley. It's one in a chain of stores. Both his store and the other one in the Valley have had their labor force decimated by Covid. The employees, thankfully, aren't getting seriously sick but they still have to stay home after testing positive for a number of days. So they've been having a hard time keeping people in the stores to work. Have a great time in Spain!
Tom
Hi Siel, have you left the group you’ve been traveling with? Going to Spain on your own? I lived in Madrid for 4 years; I absolutely love it!!
I am definitely a person whose idea of a good life is traveling and dancing. I found salseros from DF to be some of the best. And don’t forget cumbia!!
Buen Viaje!