fulbright

sihanoukeville, cambodia

if not for a civil war, i would likely be in cote d'ivoire right now. last year i applied for the prestigious fulbright program and made it to the post-graduate equivalent of the final four. my proposed project was to travel the country, collecting video postcards on the divisions that had torn the country asunder ten years prior and ultimately debilitated the once-prosperous african exception. then there were elections not long after my application was submitted. then the results of said elections were disputed and not honored. then the french intervened and the whole thing was solved by artillery and air support. needless to say, somebody in the ivorian state department did not think it a good idea to sponsor a random white guy to ask very sensitive questions in a war zone.

this year, i had another proposal for a potential fulbright, this time in france. sometime last week, i received word that i did not make it past the sweet sixteen.

so then i'm lying there the other night, running through the bird's eye of my life and i determine that something's off. it doesn't take long to realize that i'm bothered that i don't know why i'm not bothered that i didn't receive the fulbright. i put a lot into that application (even if it came out rushed this time) and was pretty confident i would receive it. and then i knew.

these past three weeks, i've been unwired. i've been going to where i please and doing what i want at a rhythm i deem best. i haven't been waiting for some girl to send me a text. i haven't been waiting for somebody to show up. i haven't been waiting for that email bestowing deliverance upon my great, weak, tortured heart.

and that feels good. liberating. maybe some other word that does not exist or i do not yet know for that whole living-in-the-moment thing. so i reason that this is where i am and for all its potential enlightenment, such moments and epiphanies are ephemeral. i will not be able to carry this all the way forward. i will not watch all the sunsets when i get home. i will not wear baggy shorts and go around barefoot with a shaved head. i will not be arriving in cambodian cities without hotel reservations and get a thrill out of negotiating my way to sleep. but i can set a precedent (think common law versus civil law.) maybe i can make the way forward a bit more forward. i can be a little bit more proactive. and so if destiny refuses to write on my facebook wall, maybe i'll just have to play a bigger part in doing this for myself.

again, i don't know what this means. at least not concretely. it's all vague and syrupy and something you get from too many mosquito bites and days in the sand. but that's where i am and this is where i am at. and so it must be told.

i want to spend my time doing and not waiting. i want to write more. i want to travel more. i want some literary agent to plug their nose and retrieve my dream from the slush pile. i spent two years writing a novel and i'm tired of prevaricating about it. tired of pretending that i should do anything else with my life. because it's good. i know it is. and i've got more up here. i just need one link in the supply chain to justify its existence by giving me a chance. literary agents are the old lady paying with pennies in the checkout line of life while i've got one item and exact change and pretty pressing desire to get out of the supermarket. so if some agent could just do their fucking job and relieve me of the 278-page novel presently taking a shit on my hard drive, i could do this travel thing for more than a few months every couple years.

and i know there are bigger concerns in the great big world beyond: food, water, shelter, health. but i did just say i was going to be a bit more proactive. a bit more tenacious. and i suppose that means i should make fewer apologies and ask for a little more forgiveness. starting now.