Harley and Me (24 page)

I find my stride and settle in. Water stations appear every 2.5 kilometers, but instead of offering simply drinking water, they also provide gloriously wet sponges to squeeze over head and body to cool off. There's no Gatorade or hydrating drinks, but occasionally fruit juice is offered or slices of pineapple and papaya. The sun begins to rise, painting the bay nectarine and rose. The route runs parallel to the shore, so we're always within arm's length of the ocean. The view is stunning. More families have come to the roadside to cheer. Some yells “Go! Go!” in French:
“Allez, madame!”
Others shout encouragement in Tahitian: “
Faitoito
.” By 7K, I'm feeling weak, but I remind myself that I came to join my sweat with others, to be part of something bigger than myself. I'm not here to set any personal best. The
day heats up and the sponges are not nearly as frequent as I'd like. But my legs keep moving.

When I hit the 11-kilometer mark and stop for a sponge, I'm almost knocked on my ass by the leader of the full marathon as he laps me and grabs for a sponge.
“Pardon! Pardon!”
he shouts, trying to right me as he runs on.

Soon, the elite marathoners are lapping me. I don't care. Small groups of Tahitian musicians set the beat, singing the runners forward. A battery of drummers on a flatbed truck drives up and down the road and thrums out a beat to keep us moving. Onward! I'm in the swim of humanity now. Just a runner among runners. Not American. Not English-speaking, just another human.

Journalist George Monbiot recently termed our era “The Age of Loneliness.” He cites how those societal structures that used to hold us together and make us community are now no longer operative. Our aspiration for the wealth and prestige we think we're owed drives us further away from those with whom might develop bonds and, instead, puts us in competition with each other. This is the illness of modern man, Monbiot writes, an infection I've been struggling to heal in the wake of my marriage's demise. Without the nuclear family I crafted, how am I to belong in the larger world?

In his report in
The Guardian
, Monbiot argues that “as humans, we are shaped, to a greater extent than almost any other species, by contact with others. The age we are entering, in which we exist apart, is unlike any that has gone before.” He decries loneliness as the epidemic it's become among young adults and as the affliction of older people. This tide of loneliness, he contends, is rising with astonishing speed.

“Yes, factories have closed, people travel by car instead of buses, use YouTube rather than the cinema. But these shifts alone fail to explain the speed of our social collapse. These structural changes have been accompanied by a life-denying ideology, which enforces and celebrates our social isolation.” He describes the war of every man against every man as “the religion of our time, justified by a
mythology of lone rangers, sole traders, self-starters, self-made men and women, going it alone.” For us humans, we who are the most social of creatures, we who cannot prosper without love, there is now “no such thing as society, only heroic individualism. What counts is to win. The rest is collateral damage.”

Has my drive to become fully myself created my own loneliness? I don't wish to live in a world apart from others. But in separating from my husband, I think I separated myself from the entire human race, stanchly determined to prove to myself my own strength and resilience. Even with the motorcycle, I made sure I had only a solo seat, so resolute was I to be responsible only for myself. And now, perhaps, that's shifting. Maybe I'm ready to invite others into my life, to risk being authentic and in communion with others?

As I finally approach the finish line, a marathoner comes up from behind me. How he knows I speak only English, I have no idea. “Come on. You and me,” he says in English barbed with a strong French accent. “We'll finish together.” I rally and try to match his stride, but lose him a hundred feet before the finish. Still, I did it. I finished the race. Frank and Tangaroa are at the finish line, cheering. The volunteers garland my neck with leis of fresh flowers and sea-shells. I am given my finisher's T-shirt.

Back home after the race, I fall deeply, satisfyingly asleep. I have done something profoundly important. I have tried, literally, to join the human race, to add a few calories of exertion to those of the people with whom I find myself sharing a house and an island. Terava will show me two days later that I finished 350th out of a field of 358. It doesn't matter where I finished. Only that I was part of it.

In the months to come, living in Polynesia, I will learn a few things: I will learn that a
pareu
, a rectangular piece of colorful fabric, can be made to function as a dress, a skirt, a shawl to shade the sun, and a towel to roll out at the beach or dry off with after a swim. I will learn how to wield a squash-size racket that electrocutes mosquitoes while simultaneously carrying on a dinner conversation. I will learn that stale bread gets chucked from the dinner table out into the yard for
the wild chickens and dogs to appreciate. (And though it's called a yard, the land is much wilder than that suburban image elicits, more like a rain forest that's trying to take over the house.) I will learn how to eat rambutan, a spiny red fruit that's similar to lychee, how to buy fruit and roast chicken and whole raw fish from vendors set up on folding tables along the main road, how to know which food scraps to add to the worms in the compost bin, which go in the trash, and which are put out for the feral animals. I will learn to say hello, good-bye, please, and thank you in both Tahitian and French. How to go to the store early each morning for the freshly baked baguettes that are a breakfast staple. How to make
poisson cru
, similar to ceviche with the raw fish “cooked” in lime juice, then mixed with tomatoes, onion, cucumber, and freshly squeezed coconut milk. I will learn through painful experience how to treat the fungus that grows on the bottom of the foot, splitting the skin between the toes, and how to squeeze fresh lime onto a wound when you cut yourself on the coral reef.

I will learn that my older brother loves me and likes having me as part of his family. And that I can start the process of belonging any time I choose.

•
    
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    
•

YES

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

—MILES DAVIS

“You free next Saturday to help me with a project?” Frank asks one lazy Tuesday evening.

Other than write at the UC Berkeley Field Station, walk to get a coco from Snack Rotui (pierced-open-before-your-eyes, chilled coconuts, just waiting for your straw to drink the delicious coconut water), or stream a movie, there isn't much else to do on this quiet island. There's zero nightlife, no coffeehouse in which to hang out and chat with people, and everyone's in bed, the island pitch-dark by eight thirty each night. Of course I'm free.

“What do you have in mind?”

“There's a film crew coming. A TV show out of Canada about stand-up paddleboarding.”

“Yeah?” I don't quiet see where I fit in. I don't know how to paddle-board and I know nothing about television production. I sure hope he's not expecting me to make pizza for the crew.

The production company apparently wants to film some local paddling and will plug Frank's ecotourism side business, Tahiti Expeditions.

“I need a touristy-looking person to paddle in the canoe.”

“And I've got the look, right?”

“Yup.”

The following Saturday we meet up with the crew. The cameraman, Zach, will film segments featuring two on-camera personalities, a pretty young blonde woman, Nikki Gregg, and Jimmy Blakeney, a tightly muscled slightly older guy. Both of them are Bic Stand-Up Paddleboard team members. (Bic, the lighter company, has made it big in the watersports realm.) Apparently, they're minor celebrities in that world and are going to learn to paddle an outrigger canoe for their audience back home. Frank has arranged for his two adult stepsons, Tahiri and Tangaroa, to paddle as well. Tahiri will serve as the steersman, guiding the canoe and setting the paddling pace. Tahiri and Tangaroa know what they're doing, and the TV folk at least have a basic understanding of paddling.

Me, not so much.

The sport of
va'a
, as it's called here, is huge. Kids learn to paddle from young ages and compete through their school careers. When local elementary school children were invited last month to an event at the Berkeley Field Station, I marveled when the local kids didn't arrive by car or bus or foot. Rather, a flotilla of outrigger canoes came through the early-morning mists, appearing as if by magic, with singing and music played on Tahitian guitars. Paddling is one of the primary venues for young men and women to set themselves apart from their peers. The larger seagoing canoes still traverse the Pacific across countless miles, from Hawaii, or to Easter Island.

Va'a
is completely ingrained in the culture. Originated by the Austronesian peoples of the islands of Southeast Asia for sea travel, outrigger canoes were used for the original migrations of the Austronesians eastward to Polynesia and New Zealand and west across the
Indian Ocean as far as Madagascar. In other words, outrigger canoe is how the people of Polynesia came to be the people of Polynesia, the method of transport used to settle these islands. The history is rich and the respect the sport garners is well deserved.

We will be paddling a six-person canoe. Tahiri gives us instructions on how to hold our paddles (which I have been positioning wrong until this moment), and we climb in. The TV people are affable. Nikki sits behind me and we make small talk. Jimmy is intense and sits in the front of the canoe and helps set the pace. We cruise around the lagoon while Zach, in a Zodiac that Frank pilots, films us. Every time we stop, Zach asks the on-air folks to describe the experience. They talk about the similarities between outrigger canoeing and stand-up paddleboarding, compare the difference in paddles, marvel at the clarity and warmth of the water. Frank comments on camera about the regal history of the sport. I just paddle and try to keep below the radar. The sun feels lovely on my shoulders, not too hot and paired with a light sea breeze to keep us comfortable. I'm wearing tons of sunblock because, like Nikki, I've stripped down to my bikini.

We continue paddling around the lagoon for most of the day while Zach gets shots. So far, I'm managing fine. The hardest part is switching the paddle from one hand to the other when Tahiri gives the command. Every six or eight or ten strokes, Tahiri barks an order that means “take one more stroke and then change hands.” Ideally, all five of our paddles should hit the water at the same time once that shift has occurred. But I end up fumbling, coming in late, or hitting the water so that a spray of saltwater shoots up my nose. Still, we're not out to set any record and no one seems to care that I interrupt the cadence. It's a leisurely kind of day and we enjoy it. My arms grow weary but I keep up. When Zach wants to film the canoe from a distance traveling fast, he tells us to go all out. We do and the bow leaps forward. We move at such an amazing speed circling the lagoon I wait for us to lift off the water. We're elegant and swift. It's wild how, working together, we're so much more than the sum of our parts. Discovering how fast we can paddle bonds us as teammates. I'm glad I agreed to this adventure.

Glad, that is, until I learn about part two of the film assignment. Frank had mentioned something previously but either I hadn't fully caught on or didn't realize his plans involved me. Before dawn tomorrow morning, we'll get into Frank's Zodiac and tow the outrigger canoe from Mo'orea over to the island of Tahiti. There, we'll meet one of the top U.S. paddlers, a Hawaiian athlete just arriving in Polynesia, along with his girlfriend who is also a serious paddler. Then, with Tahiri in the steersman position, the two TV paddle-board celebrities, the two Hawaiian paddling pros and (gulp) me, we'll paddle the fourten-mile crossing from Puna'auia, Tahiti, to Mo'orea. That means crossing a section of open ocean called the Sea of the Moon, and finishing at Temae, a scenic blue-green lagoon on Mo'orea, all under the lens of the camera. I wish I'd known this tiny detail before I paddled so vigorously today. My arms will be like lead tomorrow.

But this is what my life is becoming about finally, or is becoming once again. I was more like this as a kid, always ready to raise my hand and say, “Yes, I'll try.” “Sure, let me have a go at that.”

One of the reasons I'm so open to the idea of
yes
these days is a side effect of midlife crisis. For as much as we make fun of this idea, and I've spent enough energy this past year and half trying to prove I'm not having one, the truth remains: I'm going through some kind of transformation I hadn't anticipated. In 2014,
The Atlantic
published an essay by Jonathan Rauch, “The Real Roots of the Midlife Crisis,” where I find some of the basis for the life changes I'm experiencing.

In looking at levels of human happiness around the globe and how those levels change with age, researchers have identified what's called the Happiness U-curve: Levels of happiness drop precipitously for almost all cultures in the mid to late forties. But then, after a few years of lowered levels, the happiness index starts to rise again, eventually reaching higher than in younger years. The resulting graph looks like a smile.

The article cited other studies that confirm this finding, basically that though it's possible to have life satisfaction in middle age, it's
simply
harder
during that time than at other points in a person's life. Statistically speaking, going from age twenty to forty-five entails a loss of happiness equivalent to one-third the effect of involuntary unemployment, Rauch reports. A big part of this midlife dissatisfaction, it seems, has to do with our expectations. A German study supported this finding by demonstrating that younger people consistently overestimate how much satisfaction they expect they will enjoy five years forward. On the other hand, older people tend to
underestimate
their future satisfaction. “So youth is a period of perpetual disappointment, and older adulthood is a period of pleasant surprise,” Rauch writes. Between those two age milestones is when the U-curve serves up the one-two punch that knocks many of us off our game. Not only does satisfaction with life decline at that age, but expectations also wane,
and
at an even faster rate. People at middle age tend to be both disappointed and doubtful that anything better is coming. No wonder our generation feels so cranky and desperate.

But there's good news. At some point, expectations stop declining. They may settle at levels lower than in youth, but reality, meanwhile, begins exceeding those low expectations. “Surprises turn predominantly positive, and life satisfaction swings up,” Rauch writes.

And when does this typically happen? Right where I am today, Rauch says, at age fifty.

Now that I've finally stopped expecting my life to be perfect, expecting all my goals to come to fruition, now that I've made peace with some of my more glaring character defects, I'm so much easier to please. When life hands me a delightful surprise, like being asked to paddle across the Sea of the Moon, I'm thrilled by it and not looking at it as an indicator of what other goodies might be next. At another point in my life, I'd want to prove myself as a “real” paddler and make plans to work on my paddling when I return to L.A. You know, to show
them
what I'm worth.

Amazing
them
is exactly what I've spent too much of my life trying to do.

Because, guess what? There is no
them
. There's only me. My worth is based solely on what I think of myself. When I act in a worthy way, I feel self-worth. Not because someone else anointed me with it. Simply because I know myself and what I've done. Likewise, I have a new ability to show up in this moment and to paddle for the sheer joy of it. My merits as a paddler have nothing to do with my worthiness. This is grace. I need not prove myself as valuable, but simply believe that I am.

• • •

The next morning, I get up at three, and Frank, Tahiri, Tangaroa, and I drive to the field station to load the Zodiac. Nikki, Jimmy, and Zach are already there. The inky black morning is thick with moisture, with the possibility of rain in the forecast. We bounce across the sea in the Zodiac, with Tangaroa in the outrigger canoe towed behind us, steering with his paddle to keep the canoe aligned with our rubber skiff. The sun starts showing itself, painting the eastern horizon in pale ginger and blue black, the hues of a bruised nectarine. In the three months I've lived here, it's the most stunning sunrise I've witnessed.

It takes two hours in the Zodiac to make the crossing. I wonder how long it will take us to do it by paddle power. According to the plan, Tangaroa will ride in the Zodiac with Frank and Zach. We all know I'm the weak link. If my strength fails or if I just need a break, I can signal for Tangaroa to take my place. I'm hoping not do that, but I give myself permission to fail in order to have the courage to start.

We meet the two Hawaiians at the dock in Ta'apuna, find a beachside hotel to use the bathroom, eat some snacks, and get ready to go.

Maneuvering through the harbor area we pass surfers and swing wide past party boats moored just off the coast to give young adults a place to stay up all night imbibing. Then, before we know it, we're on the open ocean. The water is not typical gorgeous Tahiti blue, but steel gray with clouds threatening, the air hot and humid.

We paddle. I am not adding much forward momentum to the canoe, but I'm pulling my own weight. With the Hawaiians onboard, we're going at a faster clip than yesterday. We settle into a rhythm. Thanks to my long-distance motorcycling, marathon running, and backpacking, I may not know how to paddle with the smoothest stroke or steer a straight course, but I do know how to do one particular thing: hang in there.

After about an hour, we stop for a drink of water and a granola bar. A thick clamor of seabirds has been circling and then dives right next to us, attacking a school of fish. Both islands are far in the distance and we are truly at sea. In many ways, being here, feeling the swells lightly rock us, aware that we're far away from everything we depend on, like electricity or phones, is like being on a motorcycle on a freeway in the middle of rush-hour traffic. I have the sense of being somewhere I'm not supposed to be, of being one of a small percentage of people who gets to know what this feels like. I also know that my strength, such as it is, will be needed to get us home again.

But then the birds are gone and it's time to get back to paddling. Zach jumps out of the Zodiac and into the water to film us as we paddle. Frank maneuvers the Zodiac for aft, oncoming, and tracking shots. We paddle. Blisters start to bubble on my hands and fingers. My shorts are soaked, my hair and face drip salt water from the spray of clumsy paddle changes. We paddle. The little island in the distance, Mo'orea, grows as the island of Tahiti behind us shrinks away. We paddle. I think of asking Tangaroa to take over for me, but I don't. We paddle.