My Gap Year

Rohit was annoyed. The owner of his favorite pie shop said that Saturday was their day at the farmer’s market, so there were no pies for sale at the store that day. Rohit pleaded, but there was nothing to be done. “It’s okay,” I said. But he explained that his plan had been to take me to the special pie shop so we could buy some pies and stop at the scenic overlook he would sit at with his daughter to share a lunch. Since we were out of luck on the pies, he took me instead to a local beach where I was able to take off my shoes and put my feet in the ocean. All in all, a fair trade in my opinion.

I’ve just passed the two week mark on my gap year. In the past, by now I would be packing my suitcase full of my dirty clothes, and I’d be scheduling meetings and phone calls upon my return (assuming I had been lucky enough to avoid having to work during my vacation – more the exception than the rule). I might be scrounging for some last minute refrigerator magnets for the dedicated metal wall in my home office, but my mind would already be back in Los Angeles.

I have a suitcase full of dirty laundry and I’m scrounging around for New Zealand refrigerator magnets, but that’s where any similarity between a normal vacation and my gap year ends. While I was on vacations, I would be consumed by an awareness of the passage of time. If I was taking my family somewhere, I wanted to make sure that there were activities planned to keep everyone happy. When we would go on a live-aboard dive boat, there was always the focus on the number of dives we would do each day, and what day we needed to stop diving in anticipation of flying. I was always conscious of using the time wisely.

I have been experiencing the passage of time differently during my gap year. On the one hand, it feels like I’ve been gone forever – the lack of clean underwear drove that home – yet it still feels like I’ve only just begun. Now that I’ll be leaving New Zealand soon, I found myself again feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of a full year of travel. In order to get through my pre-departure countdown with minimal anxiety, I had to force myself to think only in terms of this initial stop in New Zealand. Otherwise, it felt like I was drinking from a firehose. Now that New Zealand was coming to an end, that anxiety was coming back. I was falling into an old pattern – plan the future and don’t get distracted.

When I arrived at the airport in Christchurch, I hailed a taxi and first met Rohit. He asked me where I was from and I said, “Los Angeles.” That felt incomplete so I added, “In the US.” I’m not sure why I felt the need to add that clarification, but it might have to do with my ever-diminishing social skills. When Rohit dropped me at my hotel, he gave me his card and offered to drive me around the outskirts of Christchurch for some memorable vistas. I took his card, fully intending to toss it in the trash when I got to my room. Instead, I laid it on my nightstand and didn’t give it a further thought.

In the morning, I walked with purpose around Christchurch.* As is usually my practice, I dutifully went from one sight to the next, with my mapped route feeling like an all-too-familiar to-do list. After I finished my walk, I was heading back to the hotel and thought of Rohit’s card. There was no way I would have called him if this was one of my prior trips. Among other things, I would have been uncomfortable sharing an afternoon together in a car with a complete stranger. Worse, it felt like it would be a waste of my time.

But I called Rohit. He seemed genuinely happy to hear from me – “Mr. Los Angeles.” He agreed to pick me up and show me his favorite locations. When I asked what the price would be, he said, “You can pay me what you think it’s worth.” Alarm bells.

I wound up paying Rohit more than he asked for. He drove me around the hills outside of Christchurch, stopping so I could get out, feel the strong breeze and take photos. There was also the aforementioned toe-dip. The pie shop fiasco did little to change my mood – instead Rohit and I got into a conversation about our children and our ways of life. He showed me photos of his daughter and played some of his favorite Indian pop music for me.

He looked in the rear-view mirror and asked, “What is life like in the US?”

I was trying to figure out what kind of answer to give. We had touched upon politics earlier, so I chose to view his question as a more philosophical inquiry.

What was my life like in the US? My life back home was always about propulsion toward some goal. It was managing the days, and stacking the agenda. Even the way we describe life implies constant motion – we want to “get ahead,” “climb the ladder,” “reach the top” or “make strides forward.” Motion. Action. Purpose.

My life has followed that same pattern. Get the next case, make more money, push on in the face of adversity. Move. Do. Succeed. Now it doesn’t have to be. I can slow down and pay more attention. I can be a (gasp) tourist.

My experience with Rohit contrasted with my usual attitude about being labeled a “tourist.” When I traveled, I always rolled my eyes at the patter of tour guides. Dad jokes in an effort to be engaging. Simplifying history into bite-sized chunks. My ex-NY, Ivy League sense of superiority kept me from being one of “those people” – the dreaded tourists.

Who suffered as a result of my attitude? Me, of course. I didn’t laugh at the patter of the guide at the Geyser Park I went to, and I looked around when people snickered at the guide in the pitch black glow-worm cave in Waitomo who cautioned that if we heard a loud splash, it would be him falling in the water.

It dawned on me that, in lieu of judging the efforts of these tour guides, I could instead appreciate them for being the performance artists they actually are. I have always enjoyed artists like Laurie Anderson, Spalding Gray and (back in the day) Eric Bogosian. Like my tour guides, they worked on perfecting their story telling, the pace of their monologues, and the sly ironies that inevitably made their way into the most mundane events. Was that all that far removed from the guide who concluded the geyser tour by telling us that if we enjoyed ourselves, his name was Steven, but if we didn’t, his name was James? He had mastered his timing, and he got the laugh he sought.

I talked with Rohit about this constant presence of an agenda, and the idea that there was always something that had to be done. But I was speaking from history, not my current mindset. We agreed that simple pleasures – like the perfect pie – were the best.

Nowadays, I want to appreciate the knowledge of guides. I want to learn about my taxi driver’s daughter and the miscarriages his wife suffered. I want to eat pie. I want to experience life as performance art. Sometimes the jokes you hear are just funny. I will laugh and suspend judgment. I will throw away the agenda. At least I hope I will. I just need to let myself “tourist.”

*I use an app called GPSmycity. It’s really handy for providing walking tours that get you to see most major sights in any given city. I’ve also used it to do things like a street art walk in Shoreditch, and discover the “hidden gems” in Lisbon.