by Lisa McKay
Dead end.
“Is there anyone you trust right now?” I asked.
“The girl at the video store,” he said. “She smiled at me yesterday. I think she’d tell me the truth.”
“Have you ever talked to her?”
“No.”
Dead end.
Dead end.
Dead end.
“I’ve got to go to bed,” I finally said that night in August. “I have to go to work tomorrow.”
“Fine,” Travis said, looking frustrated and drawn under the bright glare of the kitchen lights. His hair was tousled; he clearly hadn’t combed it that day.
He leaned across the bench toward me, beckoned conspiratorially, and whispered.
“I think you know exactly what I’m talking about. But just in case you don’t, you should know … they’re watching us from behind the mirrors.”
*
After several days of talking almost nonstop about this reality TV show while I scrambled to figure out what might be wrong with him, Travis went quiet on the subject. By the time I left for Kenya and Ghana, things seemed almost back to normal. Travis was still jittery and edgy but not, I thought, psychotic. I began to wonder whether the whole episode may have been drug-induced and temporary, but it was the final push I needed to make up my mind once and for all that I was definitely moving out within six months – the soonest my schedule seemed to permit.
Now, after a month apart while I was in Africa, I nervously awaited his return from Las Vegas. Would he be the Travis that I had moved in with – quick-witted, sarcastic, and thoughtful – or would he be suspicious and unreachable?
When he walked through the door I was relieved to see that he seemed fine at first glance. He was friendly, upbeat, and interested in how my time away had been.
“Are you still emailing that guy in Papua New Guinea?” he asked after I’d filled him in on a few highlights.
“Why is it,” I asked, “that I come back from Africa and all anyone wants to do is talk about this?”
“What do you mean anyone?” Travis asked. “How many people have you told this story to, anyway? And we want to talk about it because it’s weird.”
“I haven’t told many people, actually,” I said. “And it’s not that weird.”
“Are you still emailing?” Travis asked.
“Yes,” I said. “When he has internet, anyway.”
“So, what, you’re, like, dating now?”
“No,” I said. “We’re just getting to know each other.”
Travis looked at me in a way that let me know he didn’t buy a word of it.
“What are you writing about in all those letters?”
“Our childhoods,” I said. “Our families, our work, what our day has been like, or whatever it is that we’re thinking about at the time. I don’t know, we never seem to run out of things to write about.”
“You’re not dating,” Travis said, “but you’re writing this guy letters how often, every day?”
“No,” I said, my tone edging toward that frequently used on annoying younger siblings. “Just three or four times a week. Maybe five.”
“You’re crazy,” Travis said cheerfully. “What are you going to do, just keep emailing each other like this for the next ten years?”
“I have no idea,” I said, shrugging and suddenly unbothered by this line of teasing. It was so hard to explain the sense of peace I had about the whole situation. I always got a little thrill to see a letter from Mike in my inbox, but on days when there wasn’t one I didn’t obsess about it either. I didn’t feel any pressure or sense of urgency. And I deliberately hadn’t let myself think too far down the track or forecast some sort of ending to our current correspondence.
“What are you doing tonight?” I asked Travis, changing the subject.
He glanced at his watch, jumped up, and headed for the stairs.
“I have a date,” he said over his shoulder. “A normal one, not the writing-letters kind.”
“We are not dating,” I called after him.
“Whatever,” he said.
Mike, Papua New Guinea
Mike’s next letter arrived the next day.
“Right now there is a tremendous tropical downpour,” it began. “You know, the sort when you can taste the moisture in the air as you hear the rain pounding on the roof. When I experience those types of rain it brings back memories of sitting on the front porch in Uganda after a hard sweaty day’s work, listening to jazz on my iPod, feeling the winds sweep in much-needed refreshment. The bad side of these types of rains is that they make everything you own turn moldy. But who needs clothes and leather shoes when you have memories like that?
“Now, after rereading the end of your last letter, let me pause for a second and allow me to point out that blaming your own shortcomings on others is perhaps not the most healthy of coping strategies to get you through life. I take no blame in your inability to manage to get to bed at a sensible hour. But in the spirit of camaraderie among fellow travelers on the journey, allow me to pass on to you a most excellent coping strategy I learned during my time in Tajikistan. Here it is: blame all your problems on (drumroll) Uzbekistan!
“That’s right. All problems, any problems, any time, it’s Uzbekistan’s fault. The Tajiks are legendary at it. Price of flour rising in the market? Uzbekistan is blocking trucks. No gas in the mains? Uzbekistan is blocking the pipeline. Overcast, gloomy day? All that dust stirred up in Uzbekistan is blowing over. It seemed odd at first, but I’ve come to embrace this strategy. Whenever I have one of those crap moments at work, ‘Damn Uzbekistan!’ Or when I feel particularly lonely or isolated or frustrated ‘It’s all Uzbekistan’s fault!’ and I instantly feel better. So next time you’re in need of a scapegoat for any problem you may face, don’t forget that the lovely land of the Uzbeks is at your disposal.
“And, yes, the internal and unwinnable war between the longing for adventure and home. You described it well in your last letter. Last year before I left Melbourne I went on a little personal retreat at an Ignatian Spirituality Centre. One of the things that came out of that time was a ‘mapping’ of those desires as different branches of the same tree.
“I want challenge, adventure, intensity, purpose.
“And I want stable friendships, reasonable comfort, security.
“At the time it seemed like it was all well and good for those different branches to stem from the trunk of ‘I want to love and to be loved’ and it still does. But on a weekly basis those branches duke it out a bit for prominence as far as which one holds more roosting birds at night. Not sure which branch produces more fruit, though.”
Lisa, USA
“The internal and unwinnable war. Hmmm, how many birds roost in your branches at night, generally? Which type of bird is your favorite? Which branches are their favorites? What type of tree are you? I think I would like to be a jacaranda tree.”
Mike, Papua New Guinea
“Trees. I’d like to be a poinciana tree with those beautiful orange blossoms screaming out from the forest canopy with passion and vigor. And I’d like to be the white oak tree spreading its magnificent sturdy branches into the air, and a eucalyptus tree defying drought, and a douglas fir because their green is so deep and rich that the candles just don’t do it any justice, and a ponderosa pine whose needles give off the most delightful odor when they hit the ground in the warm air of summer, and a banyan tree with its impressive roots that seem to grow up out of the ground, and the mango tree in Uganda at the center of the displaced peoples camp where everyone gathers for meetings. So you want to know how many birds roost, and what types of birds, and where they like to roost, and which branches need pruning, and I can’t even decide what type of tree I want to be.
“When is your next trip – to Vancouver, right? What are you doing up there? Is Ryan Schmidt in Vancouver these days?”
Lisa, USA
“I go up to Vancouver on Friday to do an interview for a TV station. It’s a
show called The Standard that interviews people about how their faith influences their work as a public figure. It’s partly book publicity, but we’ll mostly be talking faith and work – neither of which topics I’m super excited to be discussing on national television, come to think of it.
“Apparently the station is sending a car to pick me up from the airport. They’ll do my hair and makeup and that’s all I know. Television. Freaky. No doubt it will make for a good essay, though. Well, probably a better essay if I manage to get into a coughing fit or fall off the back of the couch or something like that, but I sort of hope that doesn’t happen on live television.”
Mike, Papua New Guinea
“Interview in Vancouver sounds cool. How faith influences people’s work. Yep, definitely a worthwhile topic. Don’t go out of your way to fall off the back of a couch. I just think it’s so uncool when people sabotage their TV appearances so that they can write up a cool essay about it later.
“Do you ask for a window or an aisle seat on planes (or the middle)? Are you one of those ultra-purpose-driven acid-tripping zealots who specifically ask for the middle seat so that they have not one but two people upon whom they can inflict their beliefs?! Don’t laugh too hard, in a former life I used to ask for the middle seat from time to time.”
Lisa, USA
“Um, I think you might be a better Christian than I am. Not only have I never requested the middle seat for the purposes of inflicting my views upon my fellow travelers, the idea has never even entered my head before (and lots of ideas have entered my head – most of them positively wicked in comparison with this idea). What’s worse, if the good Lord himself informed me in no uncertain terms that he specifically wanted me to request a middle seat from here to Vancouver, I would probably do it. But I doubt I’d manage to muster up any semblance of good grace about it until later, when I was writing about the whole incident with a wry sort of humor that can substitute quite well for actually having that good grace. Sort of like aspartame almost tastes like sugar. Almost, but you can taste the hollow underneath if you pay attention.
“I do not particularly like the person I become when I step into airports. Increasingly I am catching myself feeling resentful, and entitled, and scornful, and impatient. I endure. I daydream about desert islands. I sometimes send out ‘don’t even think about talking to me’ vibes. And if for some freak reason I get stuck in the middle, I suffer.”
Mike, Papua New Guinea
“List of things that Mike hasn’t done in the last decade: change email addresses, purchase a new vehicle, and ask for a middle seat.
“Faith/belief is a toughie for me. I definitely don’t think I’m a better Christian. Or that the word ‘better’ should even be mentioned in the context of faith (unless of course it’s laced with sarcasm, then it’s entirely appropriate). And I truly doubt that your faith is 100% like aspartame, although if you ever have feelings along those lines I wouldn’t be surprised.
“So how do you react when you feel that parts of your life are becoming more aspartame than sugar? What do you do?
“I struggle. But deep down I want to be genuine.
“And I reckon you do, too.
“Looking back now (with all the wisdom of a 31-year-old who’s acquired some bruises in the school of hard knocks in life and faith) I see that I used to view the world as black and white. Subconsciously and quite arrogantly, I believed that faith and life were like a series of formulas and ‘best practices’ and that if you followed the formulas and best practices, then everything would work out okay for you.
“Fuck. Fuuuuck.
“If only it were like that.
“Part of me has (truly) come to celebrate that life and faith aren’t confined to formulas. Part of me celebrates the mystery and magic of life.
“And part of me says, ‘Damn, it’s frustrating’ and deep down wishes that the world would just behave the way I thought it did back when I was in my 20s and I had it all figured out.
“So what do you think about faith? How have your ideas about faith changed over the past 10ish years? How have your ideas about faith expanded and contracted as you’ve come face-to-faith with tragedies of human existence and as you’ve encountered people from different cultures and worldviews and faith walks?
“And how do you keep that historical baggage stuff from depressing you about faith? I struggle. I think as I get older (and perhaps a bit softer, or perhaps a bit less edgy in my anger about injustice, or perhaps a bit more graceful???) I find myself reacting less strongly than I used to. I still feel ashamed and angry and confused about how people who were sincerely trying to adhere to the same faith to which I’m trying to adhere could have enslaved Africans and shipped them off to deepest darkest America, for instance. But then, perhaps future generations will come to places like Vanuatu and Ghana and Afghanistan and judge us harshly for our neocolonialism in all our good-natured aid and development work.
“So my last point, because I need to get out of the office as they’re closing in two minutes. And it’s a question, one that I trust you’ll answer truthfully and straightforwardly. So what do you think of me trying to come down to Australia sometime between Jan 10 and Feb 6 while you’re there? I’d like to try. If you think that would be okay.”
Los Angeles – Accra – Washington, D.C. – Sydney – Zagreb – South Bend – Nairobi – San Diego – Atlanta – Madang – Kona – Canberra – London – Baltimore – Itonga – Vancouver – Harare – Dushanbe – Lira – Petats – Port Moresby – Brisbane – Ballina – Malibu
The Valley of the Shadow of the Golden Dome
33,000 feet
A week later I was on the plane to Vancouver and lucky to be there. I hadn’t banked on the pouring rain that greeted me when I got up at 3:30 a.m. to head to the airport for my six o’clock flight. That was an understandable miscalculation – a deluge like that in L.A. is a once-a-year event, if that. What was not so understandable was forgetting that the city of Vancouver lived in an entirely separate country. When I rushed into the airport at 5:13, damp and frazzled and handed my passport to the woman behind the desk she was not at all impressed.
“This is an international flight,” she said sharply. “Another two minutes and the system wouldn’t have let me check you in even if I wanted to.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said lamely. “Sorry. I forgot.”
This earned me a look of complete scorn, but she checked me in.
In addition to forgetting that Canada was a sovereign nation, I’d also forgotten to pack a book. So takeoff found me with nothing to do but stare at the back of the seat in front of me and think about the interview I’d give that afternoon and about Mike and his questions.
Not the question he’d asked about whether I’d like him to come to Australia in six weeks – that one had been easy to answer. I had emailed him back immediately, carefully light.
“I think that would be a lot of fun if it worked out,” I had said.
No, it was the other questions he’d asked that I was still stuck on.
“What do you think about faith? How have your ideas about faith changed over the past decade as you’ve come face-to-faith with tragedies of human existence and as you’ve encountered people from different worldviews and faith walks?”
“How do you keep that historical baggage stuff from depressing you about faith?”
“What do you do when you feel parts of your faith are becoming more aspartame than sugar?”
How could I travel around the world running workshops on the intersection of humanitarian work and spirituality – how could I be flying up to sit for an interview on national television about this stuff – and still not have a clear answer to these questions?
*
In my first novel, I wrote about the spiritual struggles of a narrator named Cori – a teen who finds herself caught up in a civil war in Indonesia:
Church probably came first – that’s as far back as I can remember. Whether we were in Australia or Ke
nya, Sunday morning found the five of us in church and afterward in an ice cream shop. Given that African church services regularly go for more than two hours, Tanya, Luke and I earned every bite.
Sweet bribery aside, God was a constant centering force in a kaleidoscope of airports, cultures, and friends. I was baptized at our church in Nairobi when I was fourteen. In the middle of winter. In an unheated baptismal pool. Outdoors.
That’s how important God was to me.
I guess I wasn’t quite holy enough not to feel the cold that day. But I also felt something else: a deep surety, as warm as touch, that my life was an important piece in the huge cosmic puzzle. That God loved me. That I had purpose.
Even before this summer, that was what I felt slipping away.
I was baptized at sixteen in Zimbabwe, but those two minor details aside, this part of Cori’s story is all mine. I donated it to her and cloaked it in fiction, but I can claim it as truth right down to the cold water, the two siblings, and the post-church ice cream.
Actually, in terms of home anchored in place, church probably outranks even airports. Church is there as far back as I can remember.
In Bangladesh we went to church in a simple cement building, with poverty crouched just outside the door. I can dredge up glimpses of fans slowly stirring the heavy heat, worn hymnals with cracked spines, a clinky and out-of-tune piano, and the Australian missionaries making jokes at the New Zealanders’ expense.
It all stood in rather stark contrast with our next church home in the United States, with its hyper-adrenalinated children’s program stocked with summer camps, ski trips, Thanksgiving skits involving stuffed toy turkeys and real chain saws, and much talk of the rapture.
For those of you who didn’t grow up going to church in the United States during the 1980s, the rapture is the phrase generally used to refer the moment when Jesus will return to earth, pick up all the Christians, and take them off to hang out in heaven.
Many theories abounded about when the rapture would occur and what, exactly, would happen. Most of my Sunday-school teachers seemed to believe that all the Christians would be suddenly whisked up to heaven sometime during seven years of suffering and tribulation that was destined to befall the earth during the “end times”. And in the face of a bleak economic forecast and the specter of the Soviet Union as the great evil of the modern world, many also believed that the end times were upon us right then.