It's been a while
Hello again! Bet you forgot you still subscribed to this newsletter, huh? Tinyletter says it's been more than a year since I sent out a newsletter. Which is a shame, but I don't think I ever said this would be regular. A lot has happened since January 1, 2016—the last time I wrote to you. Donald Trump is the president now, and, though I don't know if this corresponds with any published statistics, America feels more violent these days. Seems there's no escaping it.
But last year things were different. More hopeful, mostly. Then, it felt like the country was on the verge of a sea change, poised to take a step into a brighter future. Before things changed, I wrote a thoroughly indulgent piece about taking a vacation; at the time, making flights seemed like the most stressful thing in my life. It's below. Read on if you feel like traveling back to a happier past.
xoxo,
bijan
The seawater is blood-warm and crystalline when I slip into it, mask and snorkel strapped securely to my face, to hunt for fish. Underwater, where sound travels far and clear and fast, I can hear the tik tik of spears missing their flashy, fishy targets and clattering into the reef below. Our kayaks are drying on the beach nearby. From where I’m swimming, I can’t tell the difference between the blue of the water and the blue of the sky. The hue is somehow more essential here in Antigua, more insistent and vital. This blue is old and urgent and inescapable. The fish don’t seem to notice.
I’d come with Stephanie, my girlfriend, because we wanted to get away. In the old-fashioned way that people like to make fun of now—without irony, genuinely hoping for renewal and spiritual reward. It was a pure whim. Antigua seemed like a good place to find some quiet, some time to think. To get away from both the routines we’d developed and the ones we’d fallen into. It was something we hadn’t done before, at least not together.
We didn’t find much peace there, though, because taking any vacation—especially a last-minute one—is harder than you think. Turns out it’s pretty difficult to relax if you’re not ready to, and it’s even harder if neither you nor your travel partner is any good at it. Let me back up.
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The whole thing began because of resentment; I resented how I felt I couldn’t just succumb to wanderlust, get up, and go somewhere. Today, Germans call that feeling Fernweh, or, literally, “farsickness”. It’s a much better way to describe feeling like your home has moved, without your knowledge, to the edge of the world. What I hadn’t counted on, though, was the flimsiness of my underlying assumption, or how quickly it would collapse with the help of a willing conspirator. Because why not get away? The only obstacles that gave me any pause were temporary anyway; deadlines are meant to be blown, and if you’re going to blow them it’s best to do it flagrantly.
And just as I was beginning to question whether or not I could, in fact, afford to ditch the working world for a few days, there was a false spring that broke over New York City. It was the tail end of an overheated, not-quite winter, and Brooklyn was beautiful. The dogs were smiling again as they trotted, noses down, over dirty sidewalks; babies were out of their stroller sleeping bags; heads went uncovered, and arms were tentatively bared to the indifferent wind. Everyone was rejoicing. And then it got cold again. New Yorkers instantly went on vacation, which I knew because my feeds were suddenly full of bare feet, white sand, and sun-streaked selfies.
It drove me to drink. To bitching about the weather over beers in womb-like dive bars. One of those nights, my friend Aude showed me what she’d been using to combat the 4:45pm sunsets: A lightweight iphone and web app called Hitlist. It displayed the prices of last minute, round-trip plane tickets to the kinds of exotic locales I was seeing on Instagram; to say it was a revelation is an understatement. $300 round-trip flights to Barbados, the Cayman Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands? $600 flights to Japan? $400 flights to Oslo? I was hooked.
The last of my resistance fell after I told Stephanie that I thought I needed a vacation. She was stressed too: She’d just finished a grueling, three-year film project. And anyway, winter is impossible to get through unscathed. A day or two later, we sat at her dining table sipping wine and comparing prices to warm places; two days after that we had plane tickets to Antigua, leaving two weeks later. Only: We didn’t have a place to stay, I’d accepted a magazine assignment that would send me to Paris the week before, and I discovered I’d lost my passport. It would be an adventure, we decided. We didn’t have a fantasy of what it could be, or what would go on during our time away from Brooklyn—just a vague sense of pleasant possibility.
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Traveling internationally is an existentially demanding experience. Not only is the process demanding—unless you’re flying privately, in which case none of this applies—with its endless security checks, disgruntled strangers, and crowded lobbies, but you’ve also got time to think. I find there’s no better place for reflection than a pressurized, anxiety-inducing crowd in an airport or a train station: About the choices you’ve made in your relationships; about the one awful thing you did as a teenager, and its reverberations through the rest of your life; about why, exactly, the person in front of you is wearing those colors together. In my opinion there are very few other public arenas that engender the kind of rumination. (Domestic trips, especially by car, have variously different pressures, but road noise is enough of a narcotic to throw you into the same productive reverie.)
I was to take a redeye flight from JFK airport in New York to Charles De Gaulle in Paris; I’d stay with two friends for three days, while following a designer around. I’d get the story and write it up on my flight back to New York. Then, the next day, I’d pack again, wake up with Stephanie, and head back to JFK in time for our flight to Antigua. Ambitious, to be sure, and perhaps a little impractical, but why not push myself, give it a shot?
It took a few days for me to really get to know my designer, first of all, and so I asked the magazine that sent me to change my flight to give an extra day in France. Not a problem. They understand the importance of reporting! I thought. And so I followed the designers and models and assorted hangers-on around Paris, from arrondissement to arrondissement. We traveled like a wave or a close bunch of particles through a bottle or two of wine, a packed trade show, and, finally, a chic AirBNB where everyone else washed up. The sound system was blasting The Life of Pablo and we all smoked cigarettes inside; it felt suspiciously like an escape.
The next night, I caught up with a friend who happened to be in Paris to chase the night. To escape further. There was a light rain; people without umbrellas were ducking their heads as they walked, presumably instinctively, to stay dry. We cut the line at the club with a password, and soon found ourselves dancing with the underground jet set in the VIP area. (They kept throwing us out until my friend bribed a bouncer with god-knows-how-much to let us in.) And then, all too suddenly it was the next day; the clock was telling me a time that it couldn’t be, according to my jetlagged internal measurements. I made some calls.
First to the airline; they couldn’t help. They told me to book a new ticket, but that their flights weren’t leaving until two days later. I called my editor, told him the situation, and he (deservedly) laughed at me. I called my friend with whom I was staying and explained my situation. She helped me find and book another ticket leaving the next day (on two French airlines)—I would only be a few hours later than originally intended. It was a 14-hour journey that should have only taken around ten. I booked it without hesitation. I would deal with it later.
Then I called Stephanie. She was calm and collected and understanding; I was hysterical. We’d meet in Antigua, we decided, at the Jumby Bay Resort, a luxurious hotel on a private island just off the country’s coast. She called me back a few minutes later in tears.
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Objectively speaking, fourteen hours is not a very long time. It’s a day and change, a sunrise and a sunset. It is, however, considerably longer when you’re stuck in airports and airplanes, wearing an outfit that’s increasingly inappropriate across time zones, en route to what could fairly be called paradise; I was uncomfortable, and impatient to frolic in the Caribbean Sea, to bask in the shade of beach umbrellas and coconut palms with an icy drink in my hand. My drinks would sweat; I would glow. I had my passport. But first there was the droning bureaucracy of customs, immigration, and baggage claim. My last morning in Paris, I slipped out hours earlier than I’ve ever left for a flight. It was raining again, but I was hopeful, because it felt like I was on my way home.
My parents are from Jamaica and St. Lucia, each a short flight away from Antigua. I’ve been to both many times to visit friends and family, to reconnect with my roots. The weather on Antigua isn’t quite like those other nearby islands—it’s drier because of its low elevation and persistent wind—but the sun feels the same, unrepentant and joyful. The skies are huge and hugely blue.
It was full dark when the ferry dropped me off at Jumby Bay; Stephanie met me at the dock with a glass of champagne, and an attendant drove us in a golf cart to our suite. Everyone at the resort had been addressing her as Mrs. Stephen, she told me later. It was disorienting—for her and for the hotel’s employees—that we’d arrived separately. I was contrite; she was again patient and sympathetic, but I knew she wasn’t happy. We wouldn’t fight until later, the day we left. Stephanie was frustrated that I’d taken an assignment due just after our vacation together—I was working alone in a dark, air-conditioned room, and she was alone drinking cocktails on the beach. She said I cared more about my work than I did about spending time with her; she was upset that I didn’t appreciate what a sacrifice it was that she’d taken a vacation from work to be with me. I couldn’t—and didn’t—do anything but apologize. That first night, though, we sat on our patio and listened to the waves breaking in the distance.
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I like to travel alone. I enjoy the autonomy; the plans have been made, and I only have to ferry myself to predetermined destinations. I enjoy, in other words, having to sit with myself—taking time that I don’t otherwise have to mull things over.
At Jumby Bay, I had the opposite experience. I was there with Stephanie, riding with her on hotel-issued bikes, but I was worried about my work. Vacation is about swapping your usual concerns (work, school, family obligations) for new ones (sightseeing, long walks, and longer nights). You’re not supposed to sweat the difference. I found myself unable to relax, even though our accommodations were more than I could have hoped for. Stephanie felt it too. I’d brought in a contagion, the stress of an assignment, into our island getaway.
We swam in the Caribbean Sea and, on the other side of the island, tiptoed into the Atlantic Ocean; we napped on deserted beaches, and watched the pelicans swoop and dive for fish. Incidentally, they don’t gambol like other birds do. Pelicans are serious about their fishing. They line up in rows like old men do with their rods, until they take flight and circle, higher and higher, above the sea—when they see a silvery flash below they dive, and then settle on the water, like ducks, to swallow. I found myself watching them a lot, sweating drink in hand. I think it was because the pelicans didn’t seem carefree. They flew like they were clocked in at the office.
The pelicans and me seemed like the only ones working, though. Everything else was carefree: The sounds I heard most during my time at Jumby Bay were waves breaking gently on white sand, and the wind rustling through the island’s omnipresent palm fronds. The crickets chirped and jostled each other at night. But what I remember most is how all of those noises felt like silence—the comforting kind, where you know you’re not alone.
One night, the hotel hosted its weekly white party. The staff brought platters of food out onto the beach, where there were tables and chairs set up for the guests. A band played a mix of very competent covers and some original songs. The moon was already up by the time Stephanie and I got to our table—everyone was wearing white. All of the other guests, we agreed, were decades older and on their Nth marriages. We didn’t speak to them, but overhearing their conversations and uncomfortable pauses made us feel glad to be together, that we had each other. (Projection is a powerful thing.)
The people we did talk to—a few young couples from England, the roguish bartender, a young couple from Manhattan—were uniformly pleasant to be around. One man told us he’d worked on special effects for The Revenant; none of his scenes, he said, made it into the movie. With the Manhattanites, Stephanie and I traded Brooklyn restaurant recommendations over fruity beach cocktails spiked with liberal amounts of lime and rum. The bartender gave me some unsolicited relationship advice; after our conversation, he kept winking at me.
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The day before we leave Antigua, Stephanie and me decide to take to the sea in kayaks. We enlist an intrepid guide, Danian, a barrel-chested man with warm, sea-calloused hands. Stephanie applies sunscreen, as Danian asks us whether we’re up for the challenge of navigating the waves together, in a kayak built for two. Stephanie and I share a look; we are, we decide. The water beckons.
We float by mangroves, and Danian points out the upside-down jellyfish, sea cucumbers, and assorted fish species that live just a few yards from our villa. We paddle father out, nearly a mile, and as our strokes grow synchronized I feel something inside me shift. It is a singular, perfect day, I realize, and I am at peace. The three of us leave our kayaks on a beach and dive into the water to watch the fish and the sea stars. We communicate our excitement with physical exclamations—pointing, grunting, kicking—but the ocean is otherwise quiet, save for the sound of spears missing their targets. I imitate Danian’s stroke and finally can emulate his calm. That peace was something I sensed when I met him; Danian has an unearthly aura of rootedness. He is a man who doesn’t worry where he is, or about his other obligations when he’s involved in a task—that comes later, because everything has its sequence. Everything has its time.
By the time I realize why Danian seems so unruffled, our time in Angtigua has come to an end. I suppose there’s a simple lesson to be learned here: Don’t go on vacation unless you’re actually ready to put everything down. Even if you really need to get away from it all, to leave the workaday world behind. On the morning we leave, Stephanie and I finally travel to the airport together. We go through customs without any major incident, and make our way to our assigned seats. We have a six-hour journey back to New York City. That flight is the best vacation I’ve ever had.