(This is part of a storytelling experiment called WELCOME TO YOUR QUARTER-CAREER GAP YEAR)
You’re huffing and puffing as you near the end of your morning jog along the deserted Ft. James Beach – crystal blue water on your right, the rest of the beach and Malone’s beach bar to your left – when you see a large man, probably about 6'6", 350lbs., walking onto the beach bar dining patio.
You’ve never seen him before, but there’s something about how he’s walking with a slow and heavy waddle that makes you think of a sumo wrestler.
Dammit.
This reminds you of your yet-to-be-finished Japan short story that has a sumo wrestler character – which then reminds you of a promise you made that you’re on the verge of breaking.
You end your jog. This promise you’re thinking of will require some focus, so you plop down on the dry sand, a few feet from where it turns damp from the tide, and try to catch your breath. Then, you lay back, taking deep clean breaths, putting one hand behind your head and the other forearm over your eyes. Then you focus.
The promise you made was to Jerry, a new friend who you met in Japan several months ago. You were connected to him by a mutual friend, so when you visited the city of Kyoto, Jerry and his wife showed you around. It was a pleasant day, and over the course of your sightseeing, you found out that you both had a mutual love of fiction and a desire to do more writing. This led to you both agreeing to do a story exchange: every month you would send the other person a story or draft of a story, and give each other feedback.
For the first couple months, things had gone as planned. Stories were exchanged, comments were given, mutual pats on the back ensued.
But then you made the life-altering decision to leave your job and to start traveling. This changed everything. And even though the decision was made to free up more time for writing, juggling the logistics of leaving the job, leaving New York, and making travel plans, made your life increasingly hectic. This caused you to miss two months in a row of story submissions. Jerry understood completely, and didn’t give you any grief, but he continued to submit his own stories, while you gave feedback. You beat yourself up about not sending in your stories, but vowed that you would turn in the next draft after a month in Antigua. After all, you figured that you would have the time, and be able to make it happen.
But so far, you had yet to make it happen. You had written, yes, but the story had become much bigger than you imagined. What was once just going to be one short story about a man traveling through Japan with the help of his Sumo tour guide, had turned into a short story collection, all connected by following the adventures of the main character as he went from country to country. Furthermore, Jerry’s insightful feedback on one of your first drafts convinced you to do a deeper dive into the Japanese culture. Even though he was Canadian by birth, after living in Japan for eight years and marrying a Japanese wife, he could point to details in your story that didn’t ring true. So, to address his comments, you had devoted most your time here in Antigua to doing online research on Japanese culture and building authentic character backstories. The draft had improved as a result, but at this point, you were scared of showing something that still needed so much more improvement.
Laying on your back, you can hear the quiet rush of the tide coming in. Your deadline for your latest draft is coming, too. Tomorrow.
So what could you do? Finish today?
Possibly.
Then again, there are a few things that would make that difficult.
First of all, this is your last full day in Antigua, and tomorrow, midday, you will hop on a plane for Jamaica, your next destination.
But today is also a busy day. After helping Fawnie with her organic farm, you’re supposed to go on a day trip to see Mt. Obama and English Harbor with your young cousins.
You’re unsure of how to make it work.
You could cancel with your cousins and work on your story all day after helping Fawnie.
Or, you could go with your cousins and do an all-nighter when you return.
Or, you could email Jerry and delay the submission a few days.
But if you’re honest with yourself, the decision is as clear as the water just a few yards away: take the trip.
You don’t know when you’ll be back to Antigua, so you might as well jump at the chance now.
Still, what stings your psyche is the feeling of not delivering what you said you would. Being a man of your word is important you. Always has been. If you make a promise, you do your best to keep it – but if you can’t fulfill it for some reason, you do your best to let people know ahead of time and take responsibility for your actions. You’ve always given Jerry feedback on his work, even in the last two months when you didn’t turn in your own drafts, but to make the exchange really work, both people have to share their stories and be vulnerable. You don’t want to vulnerable. Submitting something that is miles beneath your standards is tantamount to surrendering to mediocrity in your eyes. And that’s the last thing that you want to do.
The incoming tide hits your heels, bringing you back to the present. It’s time to head back to the house to help Fawnie. So you decide: you’ll go on the trip with your cousins and figure out what to do with your draft later.
* * *
While digging up weeds in Fawnie’s garden, using a hoe to excavate the green intruders that poke out between the rows of peas and tomatoes and carrots, you remember an amusement park ride, Questor. It was a motion simulator ride where you watch a movie and sit in synchronized moving seats that make you feel like you’re in vehicle burrowing through the earth. As you remember the Questor, you think about how your trip is starting to feel like motion simulation: you’re having fun, but how much are you actually doing? How much of these experiences are going to help you get a job after these travels? If the purpose of what you’re doing is to free up some time to create stories, how much have you done? Where’s the progress? Motion simulators are fun, but how do they effect the real world?
* * *
Around midday, Brian’s SUV pulls up to Victor’s house and you hop in. Like last time, Brian, Tully, Lara, and Solomon are there, but so is Daniel, Lara’s boyfriend and Solomon’s father. The car pulls out of the driveway and you’re off.
“First stop the ‘Hill of Hope’! says Brian, speaking about Mt. Obama. Everyone laughs.
“So what’s up with the name – Mt. Obama?” you inquire. “I mean, I know that the election of Obama was historic. But he’s not Antiguan.”
“Yeah, but he’s a Black Man. And that’s enough for the people of Antigua,” says Daniel. “It’s like what the rock-sculpture plaque at the top of the hill says, ‘He’s a symbol of excellence, triumph, hope, and dignity, for all people’,”
They go on to tell you that lots of people in St. John’s would wear Obama hats and shirts during the 2008 presidential election. And since many people have relatives in the United States, they felt connected to what was happening there.
While you think it’s great that Obama has such an impact all over the world, part of you wishes the peak was named for an Antiguan. Someone who had achieved amazing, world-changing things, yet had come from such a tiny island. To a certain degree, just like Antigua imports so much of their food, you feel like they’re importing their heroes as well. You wish they would trumpet their own.
But who are you to argue? you think. Can’t go wrong with looking up to Obama’s achievement.
As the car pulls up to the entrance of Mt. Obama Park, you see a massive chain locking the gates and blocking entry. The park is closed, but there’s no explanation. Just a lock.
Instantly, you imagine a large sumo wrestler in an ornate purple yukata robe, appearing behind the gates. He waves mockingly. This is your mind playing tricks on you, reminding you of what you still have waiting for you back at home. You shake your head, trying to stay in the moment, but as the car moves back down the road, you start doing some mental logistics: you’ll get back home around 10/11PM; you could work on a quick revised draft, using all character and story development you’ve done; then, another quick draft could follow before 9AM comes when you have to start getting ready for the airport. No sleep. No time to let the subconscious process the first draft, but you would have something to show. Something to signal to Jerry that you’re not some flaky guy who says he’ll do something, but never follows-through. You’re not the Black guy who, through his actions, confirms the stereotype that some people have that Black people aren’t as reliable and as smart or as punctual as others.
There it is.
Some of racially tinged negative thinking that sometimes seeps into your head. It’s the kind of thinking that sometimes makes you analyze things longer than they deserve to be when you deal with people who are non-Black, or not part of the African diaspora. Having lived in the United States where sometimes situations and interactions are interpreted with racial undertones, and where, often, the images of Black men as underachieving or not as bright, pervade, your actions try to, sometimes consciously, show the opposite: that you’re upstanding and conscientious. While you were raised by parents to strive for excellence regardless of what others think, sometimes you actually do dwell, for far too long, on what others think. Jerry is, broadly speaking, a White Canadian man, and even though it’s not fully at the forefront of your mind, way back in the deep recesses of your thoughts lie a fear that if you don’t deliver, he might find some confirmation of what some of the negative media images have been saying for years about Black folks. You wish that he could see the old you, the one that you think you still are, the one who was known by friends as someone who always did what he said and delivered.
You know this is unhealthy, and that you’re over-thinking the matter, but you continue anyway. As these thoughts volley back and forth in your mind, they’re interrupted here and there by the voices of your cousins, describing the landscape outside the car window. You pass by grasslands, thick forests, some seaside towns, till eventually you reach English Harbor and you snap back to the present, tucking away your story concerns.
The car pulls into Nelson’s Dockyard National Park, a restored British Naval station that now serves as a cultural heritage site and marina.
After parking, everyone get outs and starts walking around the area. Two hotels, a museum, some craft shops, and restaurants, each designed in an 18th century style, all occupy what were once supply shops, engineer offices, and officers’ quarters. It’s the off-season, so only a few shops are open, and only a few other people – besides your group – take in the old world scenery.
“They have the Sailing Week Regatta here,” says Brian, as the group moves toward the marina.
You’ve heard of this: the annual boating event that take place every year in Antigua is supposed to be one of the most prestigious in the world. Of course, you know nothing about sailing, but the setting is certainly beautiful enough to host a world-renowned event. In front of you are several sailing yachts moored to the docks and resting in gorgeous aquamarine water. Behind the boats, you see the magnificent harbor, a body of water protected from the ocean winds by the surrounding hills.
As you walk by the marina, admiring the boats, you pass by one occupied by about 20 European-looking people – ranging from 20’s and 30’s – sitting on the deck, drinking, and having a party. A massive British flag protrudes near the helm of boat, and beside it, you see large man drinking a beer who, once again, reminds you of a sumo wrestler.
But this time, you block out reminder of what you could be doing, and continue on.
Tully leads everyone to a trail that snakes away from the marina and up a hill. A sign says that you’re headed to “Fort Berkeley.” After a few minutes of walking, you reach the top of the incline and see that you’re on a peninsula that projects out across the opening of the harbor. On either side of the piece of land are deteriorating battlements with a few old cannons in the rectangular gaps of the wall. Two crumbling stone structures are on the left side of the fort. A park sign explains that one was a guard house, where soldiers would stay when on duty, and the other was a powder magazine, a structure that held barrels of gunpowder. The fort’s purpose was to protect enemy ships from coming into the harbor, and you can see why as you walk to the edge of one of of the stone windows: from this vantage point, a cannon could easily pick off unwelcome visitors wanting to raid Nelson’s Dockyard.
Solomon gets a boost from Daniel and stands on top of one the cannons.
“Boom!” he says. He obviously knows what these were for.
You climb on top of one of the cannons as well. It’s beautiful up here, you think, as you look away from the harbor and focus on the sea. It’s vast, and a sense of awe comes over you as take in the blue that stretches to the horizon. You wonder what the soldiers must've thought about while on the lookout.
What’s coming?
What’s out there?
You think along the same lines as a light breeze ripples your t-shirt.
As you stand there, another thought comes to you: as agonizing as it would be, you will write to your friend Jerry, and tell him that you won’t be turning anything in tomorrow. You have a long way to go on this project, so you need time for research and development. If he wants to, he can still send his work and you will give feedback.
Standing there, you also think about a more short-term goal that you can strive for: instead of working on your Japan story when you get back home, you’ll write the first blog entry of your travels. Even though you haven’t done all the volunteering that you thought you would do, you still have experienced a great deal. So you decide to write about that: what you have learned, what you have seen, and you hope that this will be the beginning of new habit of detailing your experiences.
It's time to step out of the motion simulator.
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