The tireless nomad

4: 47 p.m. Dulles International Airport, Chantilly, Va.

The man seated next to me on the shuttle pulls his phone out—to call home, I assume. We have the same phone. It hits me then that I have no one to call, no one to remind to pick me up at the airport, no one to miss me.

I drove myself. I left the car in satellite parking. $50 seemed worth the hassle of not asking for a ride. These are the things you do when you’re Independent.

Sometimes I forget how isolated I am in Daytona, isolated from family, friends and culture. And it’s not that I haven’t built my own space and my own circle in this esoteric beach town. I’m just someone else when I’m there. I am me when I’m with my contentious brother, the friends I grew up with—understood, comfortable, not putting on a show I don’t know I’m putting on until all pretense is dropped.

I eat Afghani food on Thursday; Jamaican on Saturday. I stroll into the club Friday night, greet friends, grab a beer, flirt a little with the bartender. I’m at home. I clop through the estate in Upper Marlboro Friday, safe in the dew in my flip flops. I order Johnny and Coke at the bar; I wine poolside. I barely know this social butterfly anymore, lost in the empty Florida sands.

Sometimes I see the life I could have had, filled with music, friends and popularity. A life I choose not lead in Florida despite the notoriety the job brings. I’m in love with impossible anonymity there. Here I am free. There’s no need to think about work and image, no need to explain myself to people who understand, who speak the same language—people who understand themselves in me.

I am two different people, maybe five: The journalist in Florida; the social animal that flits through her Trinidadian circles; the philosopher and philanderer; the impatient child and sensual woman. The only thing I always seem to be is The Writer Seeking Answers.

Am I the only transplant enduring these moments of simultaneous obsurity and clarity? Is it only because of the culturelessness of where I've chosen to land? I am no more interesting and no less confused than you. For what noble cause am I living? And to whom am I being true?

I go back to my Florida family: my beautiful goddaughter who I’ve come to love more than I thought it possible to love a child in my free-spirited existence; the inner circle of writers and friendships no older than six years; the lulling life that’s good to me and empty in so many ways.

5:08 p.m. Back to the life again.


9:24 p.m. The Red Lot, Section D, Row 4

Has it only been four days and three nights—an eternity, it seems? But there she is, the little red speed demon, tyres intact, impervious to thieves, water and all lonely wanderers but one.

Unlike the noisy family clambering into the SUV in front of me, whose engine tumbles and tumbles before it finally catches, she starts up with a roar, eager to get on the open road for the hour-long drive home. It begins to rain. I leave the windows down.

On the 417 at 75 mph, I stick my palm outside to cup the wind. Raindrops sting like giant needles. I enjoy the pain, the aliveness, the way my hand has turned red when I finally pull it back in. And suddenly I am happy, content to live life in my own terms for as long as the Fates allow.

So what if my strongest physical, permanent responsibility is a plant named Sam, waiting for me now at home to be watered? So what. Ties are meant to be complicated.

"These are such wonderful experiences, which might only be meaningful or noble as the years go by."


Photo courtesy Corbis