(This is part of a storytelling experiment called WELCOME TO YOUR QUARTER-CAREER GAP YEAR)
You’re sitting at a patio table in Malone's beach bar, a restaurant and outdoor concert venue on Fort James Beach in Antigua. It's sunny and quite balmy, but your table is underneath a thatched-roof pavilion, so you don’t feel the full impact of the ball of fire in the sky. A cool breeze rolls across your skin, while it also causes the pages of the notebook in front of you to flutter.
“This is the life,” you imagine someone saying about where you are. But that’s not how you currently feel, despite the fact that crystal blue waters gently lick the white sand 30 yards from where you sit.
Looking down at your notebook, you think about the short story you’re writing. This is awful, you think. The idea excites you, but the execution, as far as you see, is severely lacking. It deals with the shenanigans of a Black American guy around your age (34/35), who, during a trip to Japan, meets a former-Sumo-wrestler-turned-tour-guide who takes him on a little adventure through Tokyo. You’ve been working on it since your trip to Japan last year. And even though you’ve written several drafts, it doesn’t come close to the sweeping adventure that you imagined it would be.
Fixing your gaze on the waves, you consider the fact that yes, crafting this story is difficult, but what makes it more oppressive is that you don’t have much else to take your mind off of it.
This was supposed to be a smooth transition into a new life – or at least a slightly new direction in life. Two months ago, you were in New York City, working your butt off as an advertising copywriter. You loved your colleagues, but you needed a change. Plus, the urge to travel and to write fiction tugged at you like a petulant little child, so you finally gave in and paid attention.
After a few stops and starts, you had finally made it to the first leg of a self-designed, year-long journey that would give you time to write, but also to explore and volunteer in the countries you would visit.
But fifteen days in, things weren’t going as smoothly as planned. In Antigua, the home country of your father, where you stayed with your 80-year-old cousin and his 40-year old daughter, you had hoped to be near the end of writing a short story, volunteering with a school or film production company, attending regular writing group meetings, and doing a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure type project where students from your school program back home voted on where you went and what you did next.
But at the moment, none of these were happening. So while sitting at the table underneath the pavilion, you assess your situation.
“I have stimulation deficit disorder,” you think to yourself. There’s no such thing as stimulation deficit disorder, but that's how you feel. In New York, you had plenty of activities to fill your time. But here in Antigua, all you have is time.
Stopping your line of thinking, you look around. Time for a dip in the sea. Maybe it could wash away some these negative thoughts, at least for the moment.
You pack up your backpack and head down to the beach.
After a dip in the ocean, you settle down on your towel and crack open a book about Antigua. It was written by a guy who grew up here in the 70’s. It talks about living on the island in a simpler time where there wasn’t much technology, so people were very resourceful. You only read one page, because you can’t focus. So, you put on your headphones and start listening to a podcast about paleo fundamentals and eating whole foods.
After a few minutes, you put that down as well.
It bothers you that you’re not actually “doing” anything but writing stories. Time to put in some more work – or at the very least, to get out of the sun.
You put on your clothes and start walking back down the winding road that leads to your cousin’s house. While passing by the beach bar, you see a dead tarantula in the road. It was flattened by a car, no doubt. It reminds you of how you’re feeling right now. A little flattened by making the choice to “cross the road,” so to speak, to see what else is out there, to see what other kind of opportunities life has in store for you.
Further down the road you pass a grass field with grazing horses.
There’s nobody nearby, so you wonder who owns them. The beasts pay you no mind as you walk by.
Across the street from the field is a one story house with a helipad beside it. A woman sits on the porch petting a hefty-looking Rottweiler. You wave to the woman. This is Marcy. She sells helicopter tours for Antigua, Barbuda, and the lava-ravaged Montserrat. Yesterday, you talked to her about a possible work exchange: in exchange for your copywriting help on their website, brochures, and whatever they need, you’d get a helicopter tour over Montserrat. She said that she wasn’t the person to talk to, but could forward your work samples to the appropriate people.
You didn’t have a good feeling that anything would come of it, but you decide not to dwell on what you have no control over. She walks back inside the house immediately after she waves to you.
Turning down the street to your cousin’s house – a dirt road with power lines running alongside it – you run into your cousin’s dog, a small mutt with a mixed brown and white coat.
“How you doing, boy? Huh? How you doing?” you say, assuming the dog recognizes you from the last 15 days.
Crouching down, you motion for the dog to come. But it takes a step back, unsure of whether to trust you.
“You look lost, boy,” you say, standing up. “But hey," you chuckle, "so do I.”
Then you continue down the road toward the house with the dog trailing behind.
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