Is the past a foreign country, or just a closed room inside the mind’s mansion?
I open the door from time to time to rummage. Sometimes I open a window. Other times, it requires a flight and a passport to get anywhere in the before times (if now is the measure).
I met foreigners like me who landed on the islands of Zanzibar with a lack of clarity about their plans. Some spoke with such disdain about the ills of capitalism and the “West”—their moral righteousness at a fevered pitch—all while situated in their neocolonial lifestyles, living like kings with servants.
This stung but I could never name it then because I was also playing along. There’s much the “resident” must ignore to make it through their days.
I’ve suffered from chronic back pain since I was 16, but I mostly had it under control until I was living 8,000 miles away from home and feeling stuck in the life I’d sunk into as a freelance writer. During this period, I often stayed at the fancy boho chic resort owned by a friend who’d gotten burnt out in banking and fled to live a luxe life on her own terms.
One weekend, my pain exceeded all knowable limits and I was laid out. My friend called me a taxi and her staff helped me fold my distorted body into the back seat to see a chiropractor in a village further down on the coast. He ran a pay-what-you-can clinic in this idyllic fishing village that had not changed in thousands of years but was now starting to strain under the weight of reckless tourism.
The chiropractor worked on my back in the quiet, clean room with the fan whirring overhead. And then he whispered something to me that I will never forget: “Are you afraid to make decisions,” he asked.
I was caught off guard with my head faced down on the table. I waited for him to say more. He went on to say that although he hesitated to share spiritual insights with clients, he was getting the message from on high that my back pain had to do with my chronic indecision about whether to stay longer or go home.
I cried. I thanked him. I left. I returned to my friend’s fancy resort and heard her scold her staff for speaking Swahili in front of elite guests from (white) South Africa. I often felt sick to my stomach when I lived in Zanzibar but never knew to name it anxiety.
The truth is that indecision often gripped me on the road. But I’d have a good day—an extraordinary day of simple sensory pleasures—and congratulate myself for staying.
Then I’d have a miserable day—like that time my ex left me alone on the ferry with a chipped tooth just before it took off because he was angry with me for berating him for getting there so late—and I had to visit the dentist in Dar alone, walking around like a zombie afterward with numb lips, waiting for the ferry back at dusk.
I wish I knew all those days before that any decision is the right decision, we make it right through our memories—meaning comes later, experience comes first.
Rebecca Solnit talks about this in “The Faraway Nearby,” this distance between the near and the far of every life. At some point, through an old photograph, a talk with an old friend, an old letter reread, we realize, “without noticing it,” we have “transversed a great distance.”
“The strange has become familiar and the familiar has become if not strange at least awkward or uncomfortable, an outgrown garment.”
The door is open or the door is closed. Opening a window expands what any of us sees on the horizon. It also means we also risk letting the world “out there” see what’s within.
Transit Slips, #19
I open the door from time to time to rummage. Sometimes I open a window. Other times, it requires a flight and a passport to get anywhere in the before times (if now is the measure).
I met foreigners like me who landed on the islands of Zanzibar with a lack of clarity about their plans. Some spoke with such disdain about the ills of capitalism and the “West”—their moral righteousness at a fevered pitch—all while situated in their neocolonial lifestyles, living like kings with servants.
This stung but I could never name it then because I was also playing along. There’s much the “resident” must ignore to make it through their days.
I’ve suffered from chronic back pain since I was 16, but I mostly had it under control until I was living 8,000 miles away from home and feeling stuck in the life I’d sunk into as a freelance writer. During this period, I often stayed at the fancy boho chic resort owned by a friend who’d gotten burnt out in banking and fled to live a luxe life on her own terms.
One weekend, my pain exceeded all knowable limits and I was laid out. My friend called me a taxi and her staff helped me fold my distorted body into the back seat to see a chiropractor in a village further down on the coast. He ran a pay-what-you-can clinic in this idyllic fishing village that had not changed in thousands of years but was now starting to strain under the weight of reckless tourism.
The chiropractor worked on my back in the quiet, clean room with the fan whirring overhead. And then he whispered something to me that I will never forget: “Are you afraid to make decisions,” he asked.
I was caught off guard with my head faced down on the table. I waited for him to say more. He went on to say that although he hesitated to share spiritual insights with clients, he was getting the message from on high that my back pain had to do with my chronic indecision about whether to stay longer or go home.
I cried. I thanked him. I left. I returned to my friend’s fancy resort and heard her scold her staff for speaking Swahili in front of elite guests from (white) South Africa. I often felt sick to my stomach when I lived in Zanzibar but never knew to name it anxiety.
The truth is that indecision often gripped me on the road. But I’d have a good day—an extraordinary day of simple sensory pleasures—and congratulate myself for staying.
Then I’d have a miserable day—like that time my ex left me alone on the ferry with a chipped tooth just before it took off because he was angry with me for berating him for getting there so late—and I had to visit the dentist in Dar alone, walking around like a zombie afterward with numb lips, waiting for the ferry back at dusk.
I wish I knew all those days before that any decision is the right decision, we make it right through our memories—meaning comes later, experience comes first.
Rebecca Solnit talks about this in “The Faraway Nearby,” this distance between the near and the far of every life. At some point, through an old photograph, a talk with an old friend, an old letter reread, we realize, “without noticing it,” we have “transversed a great distance.”
“The strange has become familiar and the familiar has become if not strange at least awkward or uncomfortable, an outgrown garment.”
The door is open or the door is closed. Opening a window expands what any of us sees on the horizon. It also means we also risk letting the world “out there” see what’s within.
Transit Slips, #19
