Stranger than Fiction
I write fiction. And non-fiction. And bad poetry, which I don't feel ashamed to admit because poetry inspires, enlightens, and brings joy, but I'm no good at writing it, or at least not really. I could do it, I suppose, but I prefer fiction with its characters and colors and momentum. I enjoy what Marlon James, exquisite writer and person, identified as the arising of characters from [the writer's] need. I don't know who or what will appear when I begin crafting a story, but I know I'm ready for the arrival of anything. I'm even excited about the unknown.
Yesterday during an English 1A session focused on narrative essays, I decided that life is like that. Non-fiction, despite not being imagined, is like that. Things happen and no one fully understands their occurrence. But sometimes -- not always, for sure -- we're inexplicably prepared for these moments that seem to have bubbled up from our subconscious. We haven't willed them, we probably don't even want them, but despite our reticence or straight up repugnance, we're ready.
Last year I visited the Bahamas solo for the first time. Between semesters, I journeyed there to write, to finally stitch together the swatches of the novel I'd been working on for years. I didn't know that while alone I would learn an important lesson, one that I'm still dissecting, about myself and people and existence.
That lesson began with a flat tire. Or with Big Mama at the Flamingo Bay. Or with the oh-so-sketchy rental car hut in the gravel parking lot near the Lucayan Marketplace. Or, hell, it may have begun with John Travolta.
So Travolta really had nothing to do with this experience, but the incident/accident did occur as I was returning from the island's West End where Travolta owns a home that is supposedly perfectly positioned for sunset watching. I didn't venture quite far enough to glimpse Travolta or his happy hour terrace, rather spent the afternoon, after much skeptical morning driving on the wrong side of the road through areas of the city I hadn't encountered, areas practically abandoned but eerily peopled in spots, at Paradise Cove, a beautiful, semi-isolated beach frequented by busloads of tourists who are smarter than I. Smarter because I had driven a rental car there and not balked loudly enough when the proprietor of the rental place promised me that I wouldn't have any problems getting used to driving a (tuna can sized) car with the steering wheel on the right.
But I did have a problem. And ten minutes into my 45 minute return trek past miles of unnamed streets and dilapidated one-room churches or convenience stores, I struck a pothole. And then I ran a bit off of the highway into the dirt and busted a tire and rim. Obliterated. In the middle of nowhere. In a country where I spoke the language but didn't understand a damn thing.
I couldn't move. The car couldn't move. I opened the door slowly and stepped onto the dirt. I knew what I would see. I also knew the sun was setting, I was frighteningly alone, and AAA couldn't help me out here.
Big Mama, the soi-disant concierge of the cheap hotel I had booked for 10 days, the gregarious, outspoken woman who sat at a square wooden desk and promoted time-share informational sessions to all guests because she also worked on commission for the neighboring resort, was the only person I knew on the island. I figured she only spoke kindly to me because she had to and because every Bahamian I encountered was friendly. But inclusive-culture-influenced or not, Big Mama didn't know me well enough to save my rental-car wrecking ass. No one on the island did.
So I waited. I watched the cars -- an unheard of number -- pass too rapidly on the highway I had recently connected to, the road I knew would, ultimately, return me to peopled parts of the city, to a familiar place. If only I could figure out how the hell to get there.
I looked at the sky. I looked at my phone. I called my husband despite feeling I needed to handle this myself. And what could he do from California anyway?
Within minutes, someone stopped. Because that's how Bahamians are. The stranger asked if I needed help, then requested to see my rental car agreement so he could call the agency (hut)'s owner. After a conversation I didn't follow for fear of hearing there was no hope, he reported that the rental car guy and his brother would soon arrive to inspect the car and return me to Freeport proper. And he said he would wait for them to arrive. Which he did. In the passenger's seat of the minivan he had parked just in front of me, with the door still open so he could enjoy the evening air and look back to check on me from time to time. I don't know what exactly he did during the 30 minute wait, but I know he was an angel.
And now I have to wonder: Did the angel arise from my subconscious? Would I even have imagined that character or that setting? Or the apprehension, i.e. plain old fear, I felt at the side of the road? Or the pride I somehow developed upon returning to the hotel and closing the door to my room and opening the curtains to see the palm trees safely on the other side of my window? Probably not. But somehow I needed that situation and I needed that person.
What I didn't need was a bill for the a new tire and rim. Or the bill for the balance of my rental contract (spurious, btw) because I couldn't renege on my three-day agreement even though I never wanted to drive in the Bahamas again. But it didn't matter much. What mattered was the experience. What mattered was the angel. And I still think about both, still sometimes try to figure it out. Subconscious? Maybe. Poetry? Not really. Stranger than fiction? Yes.
Yesterday during an English 1A session focused on narrative essays, I decided that life is like that. Non-fiction, despite not being imagined, is like that. Things happen and no one fully understands their occurrence. But sometimes -- not always, for sure -- we're inexplicably prepared for these moments that seem to have bubbled up from our subconscious. We haven't willed them, we probably don't even want them, but despite our reticence or straight up repugnance, we're ready.
Last year I visited the Bahamas solo for the first time. Between semesters, I journeyed there to write, to finally stitch together the swatches of the novel I'd been working on for years. I didn't know that while alone I would learn an important lesson, one that I'm still dissecting, about myself and people and existence.
That lesson began with a flat tire. Or with Big Mama at the Flamingo Bay. Or with the oh-so-sketchy rental car hut in the gravel parking lot near the Lucayan Marketplace. Or, hell, it may have begun with John Travolta.
So Travolta really had nothing to do with this experience, but the incident/accident did occur as I was returning from the island's West End where Travolta owns a home that is supposedly perfectly positioned for sunset watching. I didn't venture quite far enough to glimpse Travolta or his happy hour terrace, rather spent the afternoon, after much skeptical morning driving on the wrong side of the road through areas of the city I hadn't encountered, areas practically abandoned but eerily peopled in spots, at Paradise Cove, a beautiful, semi-isolated beach frequented by busloads of tourists who are smarter than I. Smarter because I had driven a rental car there and not balked loudly enough when the proprietor of the rental place promised me that I wouldn't have any problems getting used to driving a (tuna can sized) car with the steering wheel on the right.
But I did have a problem. And ten minutes into my 45 minute return trek past miles of unnamed streets and dilapidated one-room churches or convenience stores, I struck a pothole. And then I ran a bit off of the highway into the dirt and busted a tire and rim. Obliterated. In the middle of nowhere. In a country where I spoke the language but didn't understand a damn thing.
I couldn't move. The car couldn't move. I opened the door slowly and stepped onto the dirt. I knew what I would see. I also knew the sun was setting, I was frighteningly alone, and AAA couldn't help me out here.
Big Mama, the soi-disant concierge of the cheap hotel I had booked for 10 days, the gregarious, outspoken woman who sat at a square wooden desk and promoted time-share informational sessions to all guests because she also worked on commission for the neighboring resort, was the only person I knew on the island. I figured she only spoke kindly to me because she had to and because every Bahamian I encountered was friendly. But inclusive-culture-influenced or not, Big Mama didn't know me well enough to save my rental-car wrecking ass. No one on the island did.
So I waited. I watched the cars -- an unheard of number -- pass too rapidly on the highway I had recently connected to, the road I knew would, ultimately, return me to peopled parts of the city, to a familiar place. If only I could figure out how the hell to get there.
I looked at the sky. I looked at my phone. I called my husband despite feeling I needed to handle this myself. And what could he do from California anyway?
Within minutes, someone stopped. Because that's how Bahamians are. The stranger asked if I needed help, then requested to see my rental car agreement so he could call the agency (hut)'s owner. After a conversation I didn't follow for fear of hearing there was no hope, he reported that the rental car guy and his brother would soon arrive to inspect the car and return me to Freeport proper. And he said he would wait for them to arrive. Which he did. In the passenger's seat of the minivan he had parked just in front of me, with the door still open so he could enjoy the evening air and look back to check on me from time to time. I don't know what exactly he did during the 30 minute wait, but I know he was an angel.
And now I have to wonder: Did the angel arise from my subconscious? Would I even have imagined that character or that setting? Or the apprehension, i.e. plain old fear, I felt at the side of the road? Or the pride I somehow developed upon returning to the hotel and closing the door to my room and opening the curtains to see the palm trees safely on the other side of my window? Probably not. But somehow I needed that situation and I needed that person.
What I didn't need was a bill for the a new tire and rim. Or the bill for the balance of my rental contract (spurious, btw) because I couldn't renege on my three-day agreement even though I never wanted to drive in the Bahamas again. But it didn't matter much. What mattered was the experience. What mattered was the angel. And I still think about both, still sometimes try to figure it out. Subconscious? Maybe. Poetry? Not really. Stranger than fiction? Yes.
 |
| Paradise. *rental cars not pictured |
Comments
Post a Comment