"Best Laid Plans (Part 5)" by ontheblog

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:30:00 PDT

Embassies? Consulates? Press Pass? Whaaa???

I am a narrative girl. I make up stories. I say… Let’s pretend that so-and-so meets so-and-so in a coffee shop and then…. Or let’s make believe that some girl meets some guy in the park and then…

I can for sure say that I’ve never uttered the words, “Can I document my travels as I traipse around Accra to sightsee and then make my way to Ho in the Volta Region and do some volunteer work as I interview people about their experiences?” Nor have I ever asked my doctor if she wouldn’t mind if I film myself getting a shot (and oh please god, let them not put me in the paper apron that opens in the front while they administer my yellow fever vaccination and we capture it for forever on tape). That is very real. Sure, I was never the type of writer that told far fetched stories. You’d never catch me spinning a tale about a girl meeting a guy in the park, falling in love, and then combining forces to combat rockets shooting out some secret government bacteria. My story would most likely entail my girl and guy falling in love and then dealing with, oh, I don’t know, relationship issues. So unless those rockets came with a surprise pregnancy, or a cheating boyfriend/girlfriend, it’s not really a story I’m likely to tell.

However, just because my scripts are usually grounded in reality does not mean that they are real! And yet, I now find myself in the world of – ‘Julie’s freaking out about plane tickets – get this on film!’ Or ‘Julie’s freaking out about getting the press pass – get this on film!’ ‘Julie’s freaking out – who cares about what! For goodness sake, get the freaking camera!!’

It’s all becoming real in a way that I never considered before: the budget, the plane tickets, the program, the shots…. Yellow fever, hepatitis, malaria pills, tetanus, Cipro for extreme diarrhea, an Epi Pen for my shellfish allergy. Oh my… And while I’ve had many of these shots from previous trips or for swimming in the Hudson River (don’t ask), hearing the list once again, is, well, not a small thing.

Recently, I told my mother that I was having anxiety dreams about forgetting something…like say, the malaria pills, only to then look down at my leg and see a smiling mosquito having my ankle for lunch. To this, my wise mother asked, “Then why are you doing this?” Can a person answer, “because I’m getting a divorce?” Is that a legitimate response?

From the stories I’ve heard, when relationships breakdown, most turn to the bottle, maybe have a lot of sex, maybe they find they don’t leave the house, or they bury their head in a huge tub of ice cream… I don’t know that I’ve heard the old tale of the person making their way to Africa. Yet, I think the idea is the same as the others. And certainly I’m not very different from anyone else. You see, while I find myself having an anxiety dream about some Ghanian prison, I find that I’m not having a dream about my husband walking out. The rotation of ideas and thoughts and reasons for his leaving plays less often in my head and is slowly being replaced by the trip. I’d be lying if I said that I planned it this way, because I absolutely did not. I hoped for a distraction, sure, but I never imagined how much this trip would consume me. And it’s consumption in the best way possible. Now I’m not negating the building blocks of the drunken stupor, or the night of random sex, or the various flavors of a well-churned ice cream – I just can’t do it. I needed something more…lasting, I guess. I needed something that would match the pace of my racing mind.

And I have to tell you… I think I’ve found it.

Fetch! comments on Best Laid Plans (Part 5)

"Best Laid Plans (Part 5)" by ontheblog