What’s luck got to do with it?

I have just had a fun few days with a friend I’ve known for forty years. We keep in touch sporadically and J doesn’t come to NZ that often. She says she finds it depressing, the melancholy seeps through the  soles of her feet.

So she has spent the last forty years living in Palma De Mallorca for 90 days and then having to go off because of visa restrictions. Some years she goes to yoga retreats in India, sometimes Turkey, some times Thailand. J has explored South America. She attends hula hoop conferences and dabbles in alternative health and medicine. J is adept at Reiki and other forms of spiritual healing. On multiple occasions she has gone to India to hear the Dalai Llama.

In the time I have known her she has sold vintage kimonos, Indian jewellery, colloidal silver, hula hoops lessons, and is always a considerate and fun guest. Many people are fascinated by her lifestyle and a few comment on how lucky she is.

J can do four hula hoops simultaneously and can entertain in the evening using hula hoops that light up. As a result, she has a pelvic floor and a great figure that will no doubt be the envy of many over 60s

But actually there is no luck involved. in her early 20s J asked yachties if she could learn to sail with them if she washed barnacles off yachts and did a lot of cleaning, and I mean, a lot. She eventually had sufficient skills to go off to Western Samoa on a small yacht, unfortunately, with a bit of a nutcase. She jumped ship and managed to get taken on on another yacht and spent quite a long time crewing and cleaning on yachts all around the world. She cooked the 1980’s Pritikin diet for one truculent old man and cooked for the granddaughter of Henry Ford. Needless to say, there were plenty of Ford Fiestas for the crew to use when they weren’t on the boat. 

J travels with her Tibetan bowls and her travel-size hoola hoops, she has been known to drink her own urine which she alleges cured her varicose veins, J also enjoys a glass of wine, (thank goodness, just saying) and knows the value of nutritious food.

She spends her time doing odd jobs, cleaning, house sitting sometimes and renting out her modest apartment in Palma. J chose not to have children and her evenings are spent quite frequently, enjoying a nice wine and tapas in a Mallorca cafe.

It would be fair to say J is frugal but never tight. At 65 she is happy to stay in a back packer and take the $40 bus from Auckland to Wellington, when most our age prefer a few more of life’s luxuries. She is never happier than staying in a back packer in Turkey for 7 Euros a night, including three meals a day.

But she is not lucky, or if she is, she has made her own luck. She has made different choices from others, that is all. J is brave and resilient and always up for a laugh. We could all have chosen her life but frankly I’m too lazy to clean toilets, I’m too fussy to stay in a place without an ensuite, and so I have not chosen her path but that’s not to say she is lucky. She is simply going her own way, following the sun and making the most of each day. Spain is her turangawaewae. You go girl. Best of luck with your Visa to remain in Spain. FG