The Tourist - a story written in Susan Perrow's Therapeutic Metaphor workshop at The Examined Life Conference
This story was written for a friend whose carefully-laid plans to leave her job - at which she had stayed many unhappy years out of a desire for security - and start a business were upended when she received a diagnosis of Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Shortly after that her long-term partner left the relationship. She did not believe she had the strength to fight cancer and deal with the emotional fall-out of loss.
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by Jude Treder-Wolff Follow on twitter: @JuTrWolff photograph by Al Treder |
The tourist
planned her trip to Ireland with meticulous attention. After a tedious, uninteresting
drive in Long Island traffic to JFK in a
hired car, she would get on the 6-hour flight. The first hour she would read
the book describing Shannon, the city to which she was headed. The second hour
she would rest her eyes and dream about the life she would enjoy in this new
city. The third hour she would pull a variety of snack items from her carry-on
and slowly savor them while reading notes from the people who had come to wish
her bon voyage. The fourth hour she would list the activities – with all the
relevant details – she was looking forward to enjoying in this new place. The
fifth hour she would list these activities in different orders according to
different priorities. The sixth hour she would rest once again and shore up her
energy for the adventure about to start.
At check-in she was
handed her boarding pass as she watched her bags disappear into the tunnel that
would take them to the proper vehicle that would transfer them onto the proper
plane. She watched them go, wondering if she had taken clothes for all the
possible kinds of weather in Ireland. Cold and wet in the early morning. Cool
and windy when she went up into the mountains. Sunny in the afternoon.
The flight went
exactly as planned. She arrived fresh. Rested. Ready. When she stepped off the
plane she was stunned to see that the place she had landed was not Ireland. The
plane must have gone wildly off course and no one on board had any idea this
had happened. All the while she was preparing for Ireland she had been enroute
to some other, completely foreign place. And everyone else seemed to think this
was fine. Everyone else just went on with their business as if nothing was
wrong. She could not find her bags in this place. She could only surmise that
they did not make it onto her plane. Or they were placed on the plane that was
meant for her while some awful and unknowable error took her onto a different
one. Terrible mistakes had been made with her things. Her clothes. Her books.
Everything she needed to take care of herself. The things that, when she had
them with her, made her feel at home. Everything was gone and no one seemed to
think this was a problem.
She tried calling
her travel agent but the call went to voicemail every time. She heard nothing
back. She had no information about this place, this foreign country into which
she had been dropped with her will, without her consent. And she did not want
to know about it. Being here is a mistake. Or a trick. She did not want to know
about this place.
She walked out of
the terminal after spending days, she did not know how many days, walking every
inch of it in search of an answer. Walking outside, nearly hysterical and
desperate for help, she began to circle the perimeter of this enormous
structure. The first time she circled it she cried out loud for someone to
understand. The second time she circled it she thought she was about to go
crazy from loneliness and fear. The third time she circled it she thought about
all the people she left behind who do not seem to be looking for her at all,
who are just going on with their business as if everything is okay. The fourth
time she circled it she thought about how she would get back at those people
when this whole thing is over. The fifth time she circled it she spoke out loud
to no one, because no one was there, about all the ways people could be made to
care about others, all the ways people could be made to notice the pain of
others. The sixth time she circled it she imagined how fabulous it will feel
when she is a guest on Oprah speaking about her nonfiction bestseller that
teaches people how to care about others.
And why they must care.
Exhausted, she
stumbled into a hotel to find a place to rest. Music is playing in the lobby, a
song she has never heard before. A song she finds annoying mainly because she
cannot get it out of her head once she comes into the room. The song plays over
and over in her head. There are no words to this song, just music. Its lodged
there, in her head. The first outside sound she has allowed into herself since
she landed in this place.
Sitting on the bed she sees herself in the mirror just
across the room. She does not know how long she has been walking but while she
walked her hair grew long, down to her waist. She has rich, thick black hair,
which now features a fat streak of gray that starts at the roots, at the top of
her head, and runs down her hair to the ends on the left side. Her legs have
become toned and muscular. She feels the tone and strength of her body as the
song plays over and over in her mind.
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