Love at the Speed of Email (13 page)

“No,” he said. “Pot takes the edge off. It doesn’t flip me
out like whatever that
poison
was that they gave me at
the party.”

Dead end.

“So, when you say, ‘They’re all in on it’, who are
they
?” I asked.

“Everyone,” he said. He looked suddenly and acutely
miserable.

“My parents must have been in on it right from the
beginning,” he said. “I don’t blame them. Really, I don’t, because they knew I
wanted to be a director and they thought this would only help. But why didn’t
they see the pressure that would come when I found out? Didn’t they know that I
wouldn’t be able to trust anything? That I would wonder if every friendship in
my life was a lie?”

“So all your friends are in on it?”

“Yeah, how could they not be? The networks would need their
cooperation.”

“Me?”

“Yes,” he said and then wavered. “I think so. I’m not sure.
I don’t know.”

“I’m not,” I said.

“I
want
to believe
you,” he said. “But everyone’s just saying the same thing – that they’re not
part of it. That it’s not happening. And I
know
it is. I just need
someone
to level
with me. That’s all I’m asking, that someone tell me the truth.”

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.