All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [79]
I think about the story I can’t tell out loud to the group, about Samoa. From the start, I blamed myself—I was foolish and drunk. Subsequently, I’ve been afraid to travel alone, though I’ve managed it a few times, yet always fearful that I will uncontrollably land in a similar situation, unable to trust myself. The damage seems permanent and even embedded in my body: whatever tendon or ligament pulled in my hip has never recovered, despite all manner of acupuncture, physical therapy, doctor’s visits, and yoga. The unease feels permanent, too. But though I can account for my role in what happened—I did get drunk, I did unwisely go walking on the beach with a man I didn’t know—I don’t have to blame myself for what happened next. Blame seems to solidify the sense of permanent damage and powerlessness. I can, however, avoid drinking in a strange situation, and sit with my feelings instead of dulling them with alcohol. (It strikes me, in fact, that I could avoid a lot of uncomfortable situations in my life if I cut way down on drinking alcohol, which turns out to be true.) Next time, instead of getting trashed with some Samoan drag queens, I can rely on my good judgment and go back to my hut and read a book.
If I don’t let myself be a victim in my stories but understand my role as the protagonist of my own life, I can get my power back and trust myself that I can, through my actions or attitude, make things turn out all right.
For the next several months, my colleagues from that seminar are on a tear, getting big book deals and important magazine assignments, falling in love and having babies. I did not expect to find magic in a woman in a corporate suit with a flip chart, but I’m happy she’s waved her wand over us. It seems easier for my colleagues to make big changes, as it was for my fellow Outward Bounders, but maybe my progress is more internal. In any case, it’s slower and more subtle, but as I write down some weekly goals and stick to them, I begin to feel something shift, something lurching ahead.
NOT LONG AFTER, a former diplomat contacts me via an Ivy League Internet site I forgot I signed up with to ask me out. We meet for drinks at one of my favorite restaurants, which turns into dinner, with a beautiful bottle of Pinot Noir and a wide-ranging conversation. This, I think, is exactly the kind of man I’d like to be with. He is tall, thoughtful, well versed in an astounding variety of international issues, and wears shiny shoes with bright blue laces.
At the end of the evening, he drops me off at my place, and I invite him in for a nightcap, since he is a gentleman and we’re having such a good conversation. “Let’s go to Buenos Aires,” he says, finishing his last drink. “B.A. is such a sexy city. I’ve got time off in two weeks.”
Ordinarily, I am the first person to sign up when an attractive, intelligent, Oxford-educated man mentions going to sexy Buenos Aires next week. After I give him a kiss on the cheek good night and wave him off in a cab, I get as far as pulling out my tango shoes and checking flights. Then I realize that as wonderful a man as he seems, one of those high-SAT guys I should’ve snagged in college, his wife left him recently, and he is heartbroken and looking for a quick fix to make it better. Here in middle age, after all that meditation, goal setting, and reflection on accountability, I understand that healing takes time, he is in for a bumpy ride, and it isn’t going to be with me on the way to Argentina.
There would be no satisfying ending to that