Wayward: Fetching Tales from a Year on the Road

notes on how not to write a book

My bags were greeted at Santiago’s airport by two adorable drug dogs. They had taken to treating the carousel like a ride at Disneyworld, sitting on the conveyor belt for minutes at a time, pretending to sniff bags but really just slacking off.

I knew where the dogs were coming from, having spent the past year ambling through my new York City life without much care, and without a goal. I went to Chile with purpose, knowing that this was the moment I would really have to start writing a book. Little notebooks would have to be purchased, little notes would have to be inserted into them and little me would have to make sense of it all.

With this in mind, I did exactly what all writers do. I came up with distractions to put the process off even longer.

The first came in the form of a physiotherapist from The Netherlands, whom I’d met at my hostel. Michael was a man so in shape that I couldn’t even be attracted to him, knowing that if we pressed our bodies together I would inexplicably combust.

He told me over a traditional Chilean meal of beans n’ something why he was traveling. He had gotten into his career because he wanted to help people, realizing too late that his job would really consist of covering doctor’s asses against malpractice suits and filing paperwork. He was taking some time off and trying to figure out how to actually help people, with the possibility of somehow working with war veterans. He threw it my way in plain clothes. “I am too young for this bullshit.”

The next day I met up with Robert, a photographer originally from Washington DC, who had started an entertainment-based English website here in Santiago.

Robert, like me, had become disillusioned with his job in America, which had something to do with Economics. He moved to Santiago and began taking pictures, mostly of student protests. His head was quickly split open by a rock, an event he talks about the way some people talk about a delicious lasagna.

Cathy, a fellow travel writer, asked me to consume large quantities of beer and french fries with her the next day. We got to talking about Chileans, and South Americans in general. I brought up how unbelievably attached the couples around town had seemed, hanging from each other and gnashing faces, only seconds after exhaling a shared Marlboro Light. She explained that being attached is en vogue, en masse. In Santiago, being mounted by a lover in public is a lot like showing off new sneakers or a Beemer.

The more make-outty you can be, the better for your reputation. That’s why people hang out drinking beer until all hours, devouring Someone Special on the white plastic chairs that always adorn the curbs of the bars here.

I cautiously suggested that women seemed to suck face with a bit of buyer’s remorse, some actually gazing at me while kissing their passionate boyfriends. She confirmed that I was not imagining this, explaining that it seems as if the women adorn the men out of some sort of duty. A woman may have somewhere better to be but it is her job as girlfriend to make a spectacle of their relationship.

Another item on my list of confusing customs: Never have I seen mothers fawn over their children so much. It hasn’t been uncommon to see a mother kiss her son ten times in five minutes, even if he is fourteen and wants no part of a MILF PDA.

Once I noticed this trait, I began to recognize that it was sort of creepy. The mothers seemed obsessed with their children’s every move. Touching them, kissing them, holding them. My philosophy became that the mothers, who seldom seemed to have a husband in tow, have transferred the appalling affection that their husbands formerly gave them, before the zing went out of the thing. Children filled the void, allowing for endless adoration. Until puberty when, like I said, the whole thing just gets weird.

Cathy’s take was also interesting. She felt Americans put too much emphasis on “one moment” for affection (a birthday, a goodnight kiss), making that one moment mean everything in the world. The South Americans, she suggested, have completely flipped this premise, choosing a quantitative approach to showing their love.

I headed back to my dorm room, looking for more distractions. The only other inhabitant was a woman who would not stop talking, not even for a second. She was about thirty and unable to be in a room with others unless she was chatting, yammering, expounding or cooing. When others spoke, her eyes grew into saucers of interest, her breath held for the moment that she could pounce into the conversation with trivia about tree sap, Bolivia or meningitis.

Within minutes I was looking for any escape from her conversation flytrap, trying desperately to think of something –anything – that could be important enough to take me away from this lady. It turns out I had the perfect excuse. I started writing the damned book.