Stories

I've been thinking about the cross country trip that almost ended in Santa Fe since I wrote that post. That trip was at once sheer bliss and torture. I loved traveling with P, but at that point, the ambiguity of our non-relationship was making me insane. We had a pretty twisted thing not quite going, on and off, for a few years there. I won't go into detail, because there are things my mother and mother-in-law don't need to know, but I do remember once saying to a friend that P and I would have a great divorce, if only we could skip the marriage, and then I remember saying to another friend that the only two people I could imagine marrying were P and S, and since S and I are still married after thirteen years, I guess it all worked out.

But the point here isn't tortured interludes in my love life, it's the relationship between a good experience and a good story. That trip cross country was an ambivalent experience that makes a good story. Our vacation this summer was a great experience that makes a boring story.

I was in Kathmandu in February 1990, at the protest that began Nepal's democracy movement. I saw government troops turn their guns on protestors, and a tall blonde Danish guy pulled me into a courtyard just before the residents pulled down the gate. We huddled there with dozens of thrilled and terrified Nepalis, trying to hear what was happening on the street outside. The story is as exciting as it really was.

I left Nepal the next night. Our visas were about to expire, and though we could have renewed them, it was unclear what was going to happen and when we'd be able to leave the country if we stayed. My friends flew to Bangkok, and I took the bus to Calcutta. That bus ride was one of the worst experiences of my life. I was sitting by a window, and a family of five or six came on and sat in the two seats next to me. They handed me the baby, and then the mother kept leaning across me to throw up out the window. This really happened. When we stopped for a break, some Indian guys took pity on me and brought me up to the front of the bus with them, where they proceeded to harass me for the rest of the night. I kept myself calm by repeating to myself "This will make a great story. This will make a great story." Which it does.

That's one where the greatness of the story rests upon the misery of the experience. But what I've been thinking about is the times that sound so good in retrospect, but in the living of them are complicated, or hard, or bad and good at once. It makes me wonder about stories I envy, about Paris in the 20s or San Francisco in the 60s, eras that have always seemed to me so desirable.

Probably there were great days, when you looked around the cafe and there was Hemingway, and there were Scott and Zelda, and over there Gertrude and Alice, and everyone was brilliant and you were too. Then there were bad days, when it rained and your garret room was freezing, and the guy you liked was mean, and all you wanted was hot chocolate (forget cafe au lait) and your mom. But at least it made a good story.