Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [38]
After less than a week back in New York, I found I was tired of pretty much everything. I was tired of my morning rituals, tired of running in the same parks, tired of swimming in the same pools, tired of spending eight hours of every day in a drab midtown office, tired of the United States and our embarrassment of a president. I was tired of feeling underestimated by my boss and underutilized at the magazine. I was tired of the bleak cynicism of my coworkers. I was tired of media cocktail parties. I was even tired of my favorite fruit stand on Fortieth Street and Broadway, where the Afghan fruit seller who measured out my cherries and grapes took more of an interest in my Yemeni adventures than anyone in my office.
In New York I was always maniacally social and spent most of my evenings at art openings, parties, the theater, the opera, book readings, or simply drinking with friends. But now I found myself growing increasingly restless and malcontent. I craved novelty and the chance to spend my energy on something more personally meaningful than The Week. I had loved working for The Week for many years. I was one of the magazine’s first hires and had started there as an associate editor before its launch. It had been thrilling to see it through from conception to adolescence.
Still, five and a half years was longer than I had ever spent at any job, and my work at The Week sapped my energy for other projects I wanted to finish—some short stories, a novel, my stalled acting career.
Back in New York, I felt the years dwindling away, with little to show for them other than a few weekly magazine pages. Something had to be done, and before I got a day older. There had never been a better time. I was single, child free, and almost rid of my student loan debts from my two graduate degrees. If it took a year in Yemen to launch me out of the predictable routine of my life, so be it.
It was this combination of panic and thirst for novelty that prompted me finally to take Faris up on his offer. This was my chance to take a place on the front lines of the struggle for democracy in the Arab world! After all, democracy cannot take root without a free press. Perhaps I could help to make Yemen’s freer, just a bit, by loosening the tethers restraining my timid reporters.
My life would certainly feel more meaningful if I were helping my Yemeni journalists learn what they so ached to learn. I imagined revolutionizing the newspaper, breaking stories exposing government corruption, election fraud, and human rights abuses. I imagined writing pieces that would trigger policy changes, reduce terrorism, and alter the role of women in society. I imagined polishing the staff of the Yemen Observer into a well-oiled machine that scarcely needed interference or line editing from me. Oppressed peoples all over the world would beg me to come and transform their own press! (It’s difficult to write this now, years later, without dissolving into hysterical laughter at my naïveté.) I also imagined Zuhra, waiting for me to return.
THE FIRST PERSON to tell was Bill, my editor at The Week. The entire morning of July 13, 2006, I was a nervous wreck, waiting to talk to him. I’d never worked anywhere for as long as I had worked at The Week, and I had never walked away from a job for as uncertain a future. I was giving up the highest salary I’d ever earned. I was kissing fantastic health insurance good-bye. I was turning my back on stability.
“So, what’s on your mind, Nif?” said Bill, tipping back in his chair. He was the only one in the office who used that particular nickname, which was reserved for my closest friends.
I took a breath. “I’ve just accepted another job.”
The front legs of his chair hit the ground with a bang. For once, I had thrown him. “What are you going to do? Run off and work at a newspaper in Yemen?” he joked.
“Actually