All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [27]
Leaving Naples after three weeks of talking with Italian social workers, sex-trafficked women, and prostitutes’ advocates, I feel glad to be able at least to write something about them. That’s such a small thing to do. It seems like an obligation to use the advantages of my independence to bring to light stories of other women who are suffering for their small attempts at freedom. (I write the story and turn it in, but six months later, the magazine changes top editors; the new editor kills the piece, saying, “We’ve just had too many sex slave stories lately,” as if she were talking about fashion spreads featuring hobo bags. Eventually I give it to an online publication, where it’s up for a day, and then present it to an audience at a global grassroots women’s organization event where, at least, the participants care.)
Every time I encounter women who have survived such dire circumstances, with unacknowledged bravery and resilience, I’m overcome with gratitude for my freedom and a desire to do more. Whatever price I feel I have paid for independence in my life is insignificant compared with theirs.
I buy my train ticket, find my seat in the compartment, nod to the other passengers, and head back to Rome.
The Samoan islands, floating in the South Pacific at the edge of the international date line, look like Hawaii in a time warp. There are the same rugged mountains, lush rain forests, and wide sandy beaches but no high-rise hotels or honeymooners in sight. The jungle at the perimeter of the runway is thick, startlingly green, and threatening to take over the tarmac by tomorrow. The air is thick and sweet as mango flesh, so warm that if Samoans could, they would probably dress only in their tattoos. Instead, everyone wears light T-shirts and sea-colored sarongs called lavalavas.
I’m here doing a story about gender blurring in Samoa—really, about a third gender, called fa’afafine. I’ve hardly been home these months, which suits me down to the ground, though I’m vaguely plotting to get back to New York to see Gustavo. That’s foolish, I know; by this time I should be able to see through the fog of romance and hope and realize that if it had been anything more than a fling, I would’ve heard from him. I am always working myself up into frenzies about men and finding myself disappointed that things don’t turn out happily ever after, but then I don’t see why I should have to exclude myself from that falling-in-love fantasy. I know that expectations can poison beautiful moments and too easily transform them into resentments, but I keep hoping one of these flings will last. It’s hard to say whether such a delicious encounter thousands of miles from home is worth the feeling of longing later on. As a traveler, I know it’s impossible to repeat amazing chance experiences, you have to appreciate them fully for the moment you’re there; life is just a series of those present moments, adding up. But as a woman, I want to be back in his arms, or in the arms of someone I know will still be there tomorrow, who’ll take care of me. I realize I’m always falling for men far from home, then flying away. Still.
So here I am, on the way to the South Pacific. I got this Samoa assignment because I recently wrote an article about a friend who switched genders—the article was unfortunately and sensationally headlined “My Ex-boyfriend Became a Woman”—so the editors figured I must be an expert on the topic.
I’m not, but my friend is. She is still basically the same person, different pronoun—except with highlights and happier with herself. She hasn’t lost her sense of humor: when she pulls out the hormone pills she’s taking, she says, “This one makes you cry at movies and want to be in a relationship, and this one makes you hate professional wrestling and the Three Stooges.” She has a new softness about her that is more than physical. Talking about it, she says she also has an unexpected new sense