A Family’s Fresh Start as Nomads

Nomad Profile

Writing the Substack Expat Life, PEGGY SIJSWERDA regales us with travel tales, as well as essays on how her family found hope and joy again after the tragic death of their young daughter Sierra.

Peggy’s memoir, Still Life with Sierra, recounts their family’s move abroad and quest for a fresh start. I just purchased Peggy’s book and am looking forward to reading the story of how her family lost their place in the world and then found it again.

9 Fun Facts

• First Name: Peggy

• Age Range: 60s

• Nationality: American

• Nomadic Stance: Episodic

• Last Corporate Job: Publisher and editor of regional magazines in Virginia

• Current Job: Retired

• Favorite Country: Greece

• Next Stop: Finland & Estonia

• What do you like best about the nomadic life? Exploring

2 Questions

1) How does living an expat life differ from living a nomad life? Pros/cons.

To be honest, living as an expat with two homes in two different countries feels very nomadic. We are always going somewhere or coming from somewhere. What’s different is having these wonderful places to live.

Our winter residence in San Miguel de Allende (SMA), Mexico, feels more like a vacation home because we bought it furnished. The colorful Mexican-style architecture and decor is quite refreshing compared to our suburban lifestyle BE (before expat life).

That said, I feel very at home in SMA. In four years, we’ve made quite a few friends and love experiencing Mexican culture, savoring local cuisine, and hiking/horseback riding/kayaking in our high-desert climate. We also enjoy entertaining and being involved in the community. Feeling a sense of belonging is another benefit to being an expat that makes it different than the nomadic life.

We live in our home in Appingedam, the Netherlands—a darling town in the Northeast—from April to October. We renovated our canal-front 100+ year-old house and filled it with our furniture, artwork, and decor, which we shipped over from the U.S. It feels very cozy. We tend to be busier when we’re in the Netherlands because we love to go camping and explore new places in Europe. So, our summers often feel even more nomadic.

Having homes to come home to is what makes expat life a better choice for us than being 100% nomads. As retirees, we love (and need) our “down” time. It gives us the chance to recover and start dreaming about the next fabulous place we want to visit.

2) You center your family in a lot of your writing, including your memoir. How does writing heal you?

This is a tough question to answer. When our daughter died in 1990 at age two,my life turned upside down. Peter and I also had two sons, one older and one younger than Sierra, and for the first few years, it was all we could do to get through each day.

Ever since, I’ve been trying to find the sense of well-being I knew before the tragedy happened. Luckily, I have found contentment through writing and travel, so, you could say, both of these activities have helped in the healing process.

Travel is a form of escape, a way to leave your worries behind, at least for a while. I have often wondered if one of the reasons I have traveled so much since Sierra died was an attempt to run away from the sadness. I think there’s some truth there. Plus, as a travel writer, business owner, and mother of three boys (our third son arrived five years after our daughter died), life was hectic. Staying busy was another way to keep sadness at bay.

As if I needed more to do, I embarked on my MFA in creative nonfiction in the early 2000s. I didn’t intend to write a memoir about Sierra’s death (Still Life with Sierra) and how it prompted us as a family to run away to Europe for a year. But the story wanted to be told. The telling was definitely a healing thing.

Am I healed? Nope, but I have experienced many wondrous things throughout my 6+ decades, including raising three wonderful sons and staying close to my husband and best friend, Peter.

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Christened “Wander Woman” by National Geographic, Erin Michelson has traveled to 140 countries & all 7 continents. She is the host of the Nomad Life community, a self-defense coach, professional speaker, and author of the Nomad Life™ series of curated trips and travel guides, including the #1-ranked Explore the World with Nomads.

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