14.4.09

magic words, vol. 6


it's the most natural thing in the world, to punch someone in the face. and it's also the most unnatural.

12.4.09

dependency issues

i'm not any good with money since my senior year of college. i used to hoard it mindlessly; my savings account was swollen, my clothes were shabby. when i started college, the knowledge that i would someday have a ponderous burden of debt hanging over my daily life caused the kind of seesawing associated with religious fanatics--i would hoard for a month or two, then spend recklessly for a day or a weekend, then vow to clean up...and repeat.

for some reason, just before my senior year began, i threw the greater percentage of my caution to the wind and began to spend. there were certain chemical explanations for this, but i think much was motivated by my eagerness to shake the habits of guilt and absconding-from-self that had ruled my behavior and emotions nearly as long as i can remember. i wanted to hold my head up, buy flowers for people i liked and take them out to coffee, and most of all i wanted to adorn myself in clothes that i liked, that expressed just how kick-ass i felt i might be, given the opportunity.

it was, however, not until spring break of that year that i made the decision that made a lasting wreck of my finances. predictably, my new kick-ass habits precluded any increase in my savings account that year; the possibility arose to go to a small overlooked island in the caribbean sea for the two weeks of spring break. i felt that i needed to go, for an extensive matrix of reasons. i prayed for the money to be provided; it did not come to me; it occurred to me that i could use what remained of my savings account, the substance of the last three years of summer jobs, and all i had in the world of concrete value. i forced the lock on the possibility and bought the airplane ticket less than a week in advance of the flight. as i clicked the button on my second-hand computer to complete the purchase, i began to shake, to cry.

i was like that child who has determined to jump from the high dive, but is petrified at the top of the ladder, suddenly seeing that the surface of the water is immaterial and measuring his actual height from the deep blue floor of the pool.

i suppose i shouldn't have gone. i have looked back at my experience on the island for valuable lessons, moral or otherwise, but none present themselves. neither was the trip like my summer in france, whose value i never seek to prove because it was the over-and-above fulfillment of a long-awaited wish. the trip to the island was an exercise in futility, most of all. i suppose that itself could be a valuable lesson...

i was tired at the end of two weeks, wearily eager to return home. upon reflection, the final day was also valuable, an introduction to the way i now undertake to live every day--a lesson in the stepwise methodology. i had not slept a full night the entire time, thanks to the importunate mosquitoes that came out in the cool of evening. i had drunk hardly any water for two weeks in fear of contamination. my nerves were frayed and my guts were dry and twisted, and the thought of the journey ahead made me almost frantic. so i took the advice of my dearest friend, who has to travel a lot and doesn't always like it. she said, "just look at your trip in stages, and get one done at a time." so, first, there was the hike down the mountain of castle comfort to the gas station at the bottom, inexpertly schlepping my duffel bag like a recruit marine, to wait for the taxi. then there was the wait at the gas station for the taxi...i knew not to expect him to be on time. then followed the five minutes intervals of worry and self-soothing. when at last i began to look around me, in case somehow i had missed the obvious, a man who had been parked at the gas station all the time and checking his phone walked up to me and said, "you are miss bird?" i thought, at least my wait at the airport is likely to be short.

there followed the drive into roseau, where i left the taxi and boarded the airport bus along with several other people, one of whom--an old man, ill-dressed--insisted on small talk for the beginning of the ride, and revealed himself to be the father of the island's representative in the united nations. the journey to the airport was a good two hours, maybe more.

and when we arrived, i found that i owed someone twenty dollars to successfully leave the country. the airline clerk was the one who demanded it--i know she mentioned "customs fee" in her rationale. i had spent the last money i had on the taxi and bus fare. i looked around me for likely americans.

there was a family--a father, a mother, and a girl and boy my age--all standing at the entryway together. eventually the boy kissed the girl--not a brotherly kiss--shook hands with the father, hugged the mother, and left them. in a few moments, i went up to them.

i don't remember what i said, but i do remember that i concentrated on producing an expression of humorous helplessness. "isn't this funny?" i meant to convey, as i asked them for money, "of all times to have left my millions back at home. these silly rules of intercontinental travel... one never knows, do one?" the mother looked at me pityingly, and forked out a twenty-dollar bill with an expression of resignation. i said, "when we land in puerto rico, i'll go to an atm and get cash to pay you back." and i meant it.

we all ended up sitting together in the terminal. they were from somewhere in california, or maybe it was the midwest, or florida--i can't remember. the daughter was engaged to the boy i had seen earlier, who was studying at ross university, the medical school on the island, where people from all over the world could get a M.D. for less. she was thinking about coming out to live with him next year. her parents had been in portsmouth, the other big city, on the opposite side of the island from where i had lived for two weeks. they had stayed in a resort hotel, eating and drinking and snorkeling. the father wanted to know where i went to school and what i intended on doing with a liberal arts degree. when i told him i was a writer, his face lit up. he had always wanted to be a writer. he liked tim o'brien and ernest hemingway. i liked ernest hemingway and john steinbeck. i was reading the brothers karamazov; he had never read the brothers karamazov. he wanted to know what i was working on right then. i don't remember what it told him, nor do i remember whether it was the truth or not. the daughter and i spoke about school and the horror of graduating. the mother said little to nothing.

we sat nowhere near each other on the plane; arriving in puerto rico, i lost track of them, but it was small airport and we all had a good while to wait before our connecting flights. i immediately leapt on my quest for an atm machine, but could not find one anywhere. i walked up and down the one hall of terminals, about the length of a football field, poking my head into every notch in the wall.

i stumbled upon the family an hour or so later, in the food court of the airport. i was embarrassed, but i accosted them, saying, "have you seen an atm at all? i'm looking all over for one..." the father stepped forward and said, "don't worry, don't worry, we've got you covered, don't worry." i looked at mother--her face was studiously, resignedly benign, much as she might look if her husband decided to take up some embarrassing hobby. maybe he had, in a way--the next thing i knew, he was pressing another twenty dollar bill into my hand. my jaw started to shake, though no sounds were coming out. he said, "just one condition, i want you to tell me one thing--do you write by hand, in a notebook, or do you type?"

i could not look at the daughter--i could not face her. i looked again at the mother--her face was pity-free, a cipher. i looked at the father, trying to gauge the boyish enthusiasm of his face, his sparkling eyes, red cheeks and open mouth, eager to seize upon my response. i wanted desperately, in my utter humiliation, to give him the best value for his money...

"in a notebook," i told him, stammering. "i like the moleskine notebooks...that hemingway used to write in..."

his eyebrows shot up like fireworks. "that's what i like the best, too!" he crowed raucously, barely containing his synchronicity-inspired excitement. he began to say more, but the mother pulled at his arm, saying "our flight's boarding, hon, we have to go." i looked at her and said, "thank you," in a low voice meant to convey my sympathy, my apology. she smiled with closed lips. i ducked my head over and over, like a pandering majordomo, and we all retreated from each other. i wonder if she was telling the truth, or, like i was, just doing her best to bring down the curtain.