June 12, 2008, 10:14 p.m.
This entry is split into two parts - one that was written last week on my day off, and one from this week.
Part I
It took me just shy of three weeks to adjust to the Club Med lifestyle. Then it was like a click, a pop, the settling of a puzzle piece into its groove. In the middle Tuesday, May 20th, I could feel it. I had arrived. It was a good feeling, like when you have moved to a new neighborhood and one day it hits you: I live here. Like, I know where the grocery store is and how long it takes me to get to the gym and back. I have a favorite café and I know where the creaks are in the floor in my house so that I can avoid them for my roommates when I come home late at night. I know how far away downtown is and where the closest Blockbuster is. This is my home.
So this is my home! There are, of course, plenty of things I don’t know yet, but I do know this is a tropical island and it has tropical thunderstorms. I know last 20 minutes of solid downpour, another 40 of overcast-ness, and then they’re through - so when people come into my office at 11am freaked out that their afternoon excursion may be rained out, I tell them to be patient. I know that the people from here (from the Turks and Caicos islands) are called Belongers, and I have met the one Belonger G.O we have at Turkoise right now, who is doing an internship at Reception. I know I can take small breaks during the shows at night (the ones I’m not in). I know that if an arrival is late, I need to come back 25 minutes later (every GM that books their travel through Club Med is met by smiling and waving G.Os - so every day we are all expected to do a certain number of arrivals, which includes waiting around for people’s flights to arrive, waving and smiling, and walking them to their rooms). I know that only dryer number 2 works in the laundry room. I know what lies beyond the bends in the beach to the right and left of Club Med. I know that the grocery store stocks one kind of granola bar that doesn’t have corn syrup. I know that if you miss breakfast, the late breakfast table is out until 11:45am. I know that the maids comes to my room on Tuesdays and that if I want my room swept out good of all the sand I accumulate during the week then I need to get everything up off my floor myself. I know that to get around on the island I can either hitch (only with women or couples), get a jitney (local bus-like vehicle), or take a taxi - and I know that it’s $15 one way to the grocery store so I’ll never be taking taxis. I know that on my day off if I stay in the village I have to wear my uniform but switch my nametag to the right. I know that there is one movie theater on the island and that right now it’s showing Sex & The City: The Movie. I know that on their days off, a lot of the G.Os go to Stacey’s, the local beach restaurant next door, get Coronas, and sit in the perfect tropical water with them.
I also know about the Club Med friends and family package. Here’s the deal: Summer is the low season here in Turkoise, so for the months of June and July they are offering us a sweet deal: $100/night per person for our friends and family to come visit us. This is an amazing bargain - as I have mentioned, the Club Med package includes all meals, all drinks, all activities (of which there are plenty), and accommodation. The usual price per night is over $200 - sometimes significantly over. So if you’re going to come and visit me in this ridiculously gorgeous location, I suggest getting your act together and looking up flights to Providenciales, Turks and Caicos (there are direct flights from NYC) for anytime in June or July. Then tell me your dates, I fill out a form here in the village, and you pay once you get here - you don’t book with Club Med online or by phone. If you can, do this. I assure you, it will be well worth it.
Today I’m happy and relaxed. It’s my day off so I got to sleep in, after staying out until 2am last night and getting pretty happy with some coconut rum. The culture here allows for drinking every night, but I only take advantage of it every once in a while. We have house red, white, and rosé wine available at both lunch and dinner so I sometimes have a glass of that, but I don’t get raging drunk every night by any means - usually I only drink on my days off. Drinking dehydrates you and makes it harder to get up the next day, and I need all the energy I can get.
Speaking of energy, for the most part I have found a balance here. I take a nap every day (without fail) and on the days I’m not in shows, I usually sneak away early (by early I mean 11:45 or midnight) to make up some much-needed sleep. I have also pretty much hit my stride with French, which I think was a big drain on my brain for the first few weeks. I have observed that when I use a language intensively, such as my first few weeks in Buenos Aires or when I studied French in Montreal, at the beginning I feel drained and depleted. I need more food and more sleep while learning (or recalling) a language, because it is such an intense use of mental resources. But now I know my way around the office - I know how to do my job - and I am also at a level in French that I feel comfortable at. I can explain almost everything I wish to without a problem, and I work on my vocabulary list every day, but in a relaxed manner. I’m ok.
In other news, when I began at Club Med I was told that I would bond with G.Ms (guests) on a regular basis, and that I would make connections here that would last forever. I spoke to one former G.O who said that after Club Med she traveled in Europe for two months without ever paying for accommodations, because she had so many G.M friends she could stay with. I guess I didn’t really believe the stories, but reflecting upon my nearly 5 weeks here, I can point to several G.Ms with whom I really clicked: two great girls from SF, a ballet teacher in New York City, a construction worker in Montreal, a former circus G.O now on the West Coast, a finance guy from New York, and four fun and authentic boys from Kentucky. It’s also interesting to me how quickly I can determine who I am meant to get to know. When I listen to my intuition, it is obvious it is to me who I am meant to meet and what information I am meant to gain. I feel like it’s really true that as human beings we each have messages for each other, and that when you’re not inhibiting yourself or others, you naturally deliver important information to each other at the precise moment each person needs it.
Part II
It is now one week after I wrote that last entry and while most of it holds, I wish to make a few additions. First, I had a rough week. I feel more weathered now, as though I was naïve and innocent when I wrote all of that before, and now I’m more realistic about what there is for me here and what there isn’t.
Basically, I am disillusioned. It seems silly for me to say that I have settled in. I haven’t settled in. I’m not sure I ever will. I’m not sure I will ever totally adjust to this crazy lifestyle. I’m not sure there will ever be a period of normalcy here. In a way, it’s like college: so much happens in one day that it seems incredible to be able to judge it in terms of one week to the next. Ok, I will stop being vague and start being more concrete.
A large part of my stated reason for coming here was to work on my performance abilities. I wanted to gain experience in performing and possibly choreographing, and have fun in the process. However, the shows are of such low quality that it’s not very realistic for me to actually improve as a performer, at least not in conjunction with Club Med (i.e., I could train on my own, but I’m not going to improve by being part of Club Med shows). This was a gradual realization, as I began to recognize that I was finding it extremely stressful to be a part of shows of such poor quality - in other words, not only was I unfulfilled in terms of feeling like I’m not performing up to my potential, but I was actually experiencing huge discomfort being a part of productions that I think are, to be frank, terrible.
Then I was majorly triggered in terms of my personal ability when I sang the song Fever in one of the shows a few nights ago. I thought I was awful. I don’t actually know whether it was awful, per se - the chances are high that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was - but I thought I sounded off and I was also petrified. No, literally - I was petrified so I just stood there, immobile, the whole time I sang! Looking back on it, it was actually kind of funny. At the time, though, I found it humiliating.
Then in typical J fashion, I decided that I am not good enough to be a professional performer, and that I should give up on that dream and start thinking about other careers that I will be good at and find fulfilling. It has been four years since I graduated from college and in all that time, I have yet to have a job that I was truly good at that I really believed in. I’m actually not sure what I’ve been doing! Just kidding, but it does occur to me that my professional angst is partly due to the fact that I have never worked in a profession in which I was playing to my strengths and within the realm of my personality type. I need to work with people, I need to use my sensitivity for good (such that it becomes an advantage, not just a liability), and I need to do something meaningful. Frankly, I just don’t care enough about selling the tours here. I am in a sales position and I don’t care about selling. The only job I can remember doing where I felt that I was using my personality type for good and that I found fulfilling was being an RA in Twain my senior year. In that position, I worked with a team of other capable, compassionate people, and I used my powers of observation and sensitivity to ensure that the community stayed strong and that people were taken care of. I organized fun events and worked as part cheerleader, part therapist, and part team member - and I liked it. However, at the same time I remember the beginning of my senior year in college as one of the lowest points of my life. I was so lonely that I cried all the time, and I was sometimes jealous of my residents for having friends. By the end of the year I had found good friends, but it occurred to me in remembering this ‘dream’ job that even while doing my dream job, I was still unhappy … a line of reasoning that made me wonder, am I just an unhappy person? Isn’t it true that happy people make the best of their circumstances, no matter what they are - such that, in essence, happy people are always happy, and unhappy people are always unhappy? And then, as it follows, will I ever be happy??
This bout of anxiety dovetailed nicely with a spike in personal feminine hormones such that by Monday afternoon I could barely hold it together as my boss told me that a group of French-speaking travel agents complained about me last week. I was standing there as he tactfully tried to remind me that we need to keep our energy up and a smile on our face in the office, and all I could think was, “I don’t blame them - the people who complained about me.” I was a bitch to this group of French-speaking travel agents. Not a raving psycho lunatic bitch, but a subtly annoyed, overtired, resentful-of-questions bitchy employee with an attitude. It’s really hard to be nice when you don’t care, and it’s also trying when you don’t get enough rest and you have to go through everything in a foreign language. Still, I would have been annoyed with me, too. I have always wondered of certain people in the tourism industry: if you hate people, why do you work with the public?
So to make a long story even longer, I had a mini-breakdown after my boss reminded me of this need to keep my energy up. I at least almost made it to my room before I started bawling. After 10 minutes of crying myself into hysterics, I called Cindy, who performed beautifully in embodying the essence of this quote: “A true friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you forget the words.” I had forgotten the words, so she reminded me: I have been happy before and I will be again. Just because I have bad moments, bad days, or bad weeks doesn’t mean that I am doomed to a life of depression. Also, as she reminded me, I am a deep person and I feel life very strongly. My highs are high and my lows are low. And I am still discovering my path and finding my niche - but that doesn’t mean that I’ll never find it. As per my dark mood, we also discussed my choices in terms of what I would do if I quit Club Med (which in and of itself made me feel better, just to know that this isn’t all there is), and went through some possibilities in terms of possible career options. And, encouragingly, Cindy said she thought Fever was a difficult song and that given the fact that I had only practiced it twice before performing it, it wasn’t a surprise that it didn’t turn out perfectly.
So now it is two days later and I have let all of this percolate, especially now that it is my day off. Here is what I have come up with: I have a good voice and I’m a strong dancer. I don’t and will never have a good enough voice to be a lead in a musical, but I could be a good chorus member. I could dance swing or tango professionally, no problem. I am an average ballet dancer, a good jazz dancer, and a good hip-hop dancer. I’m not good at picking up steps quickly but I’m great once I have a dance memorized. But these are just logistics - the biggest thing that I have come up with is that my angst isn’t all about whether I’m good enough or not (although that is definitely a large part of it). The more relevant and compelling portion of it is that I desperately want to find a way to unfurl my potential as a performer. I know I have SOMETHING in me. I want to share my light and grace with the world, and a lot of my frustration comes from not having an outlet. I don’t know how to get it out there - I don’t know where I fit in terms of performance. I don’t know how to share what I have, who I am, and that’s what I want to do more than anything. I don’t just want to perform for me, I want to perform because it’s what I feel like I was meant to do - that I could bring joy to myself and others through this gift that I have … I just don’t know how to do it yet.
OK, that’s all for now. Don’t forget to consider coming to visit me here in June or July - these are by far the most affordable times to visit, and who knows if I’ll even last here through the end of my contract? ☺ So get your ass to the Caribbean, for real!
Language spot:
Here is yet another piece of evidence pointing to the reality that how and what we think about actually determines reality - that thoughts and attitudes affect the world in very concrete ways. From Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear (this is a conversation between two characters):
“’Expectation works in mysterious ways - and totally unconsciously. Simple example: a group of genetically identical rats are sent to two different labs for testing. One lab is told that the rats were bred for intelligence and will run a maze faster than normal. The other lab is told that the rats are dumb and will run a maze slowly. Results come back - faster in one lab, slower in the other. Yet the rats are genetically identical.’
‘OK, so they fudged.’
‘They said they didn’t. Anyway there’s much more. Next example: a group of survey takers are told, Look, we know that pollsters can influence results in subtle ways. We want to avoid that. So you knock on the door, and the minute someone answers you start reading only what is on this card: ‘Hello, I am doing a survey, and I am reading from this card in order not to influence you … et cetera.’ The polltakers say nothing except what is on the card. One group of pollsters is told, this questionnaire will get seventy percent positive answers. They tell another group, you can expect thirty percent positive answers. Identical questionnaires. The results come back - seventy and thirty.’
‘How?’
‘It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that hundreds of studies prove again and again that expectations determine outcome. People find what they think they’ll find.’”
