life lessons

Where’s Waldo?

The clock rolls over to five AM and a very tired self stumbles out onto the streets of Gotham, jerking an entourage of bags close behind. In the ensuing hour, the streets of New York will be vacated, creating a chasm between the retreat of nocturnal dregs and the emergence of early bird "greed is good" types. …I guess even the City that Never Sleeps allows herself the occasional power nap.

I yawn, stretch, and take a moment to enjoy the sanctity of place. I like to think that I appreciate every new place I go, but I pay special attention when visiting one of my "home" towns (translation: I am a nomad). For example, I make a pilgrimage to Old Brompton Cemetery whenever I’m in London. In Toronto, I trek to the thirty-sixth floor of the Aetna tower – home of the Fitness Institute – to relish the 270-degree views of Lake Ontario and the city skyline. I blow a kiss to Nassau Hall and visit Eden-like Lake Carnegie in Princeton. When driving along I-101, I wink at the Channel Islands that mysteriously lurk across the Santa Barbara Channel. And, in New York, I love standing in the middle of one of the East side Avenues – at five in the morning – to glare down its cavernous concrete corridors. In the vast emptiness of the street I pause to take a proper bow - arms stretched out, palms open-faced. These odd acts of veneration stem from a belief system that is rooted in the principles of Ayn Rand’s respect for man’s ability to achieve and create and of Native American respect for Mother Earth. Although these principles conflict sometimes, I still derive much pleasure from viewing the world through this lens.

Reluctantly snapping out of my fugue, I embark upon the all too familiar practice of getting to somewhere anyway I can as cheaply as I can. Most people probably have reservations about walking through Spanish Harlem, but I make my way up to 125^th street and hop on the M60 bus to LaGuardia airport without thinking twice. Over the years, I have made an art out of out getting to and fro major city airports. New York, Chicago, and Toronto all have fantastic public transportation systems, but Boston wins top honors in terms of price and extensiveness. The West Coast’s PT is expensive and incongruous, although I will concede that it has substantially improved. London and Paris are bad because their zone systems can become very expensive. On the whole, though, words like MetroCard and Carte Orange are music to my ears.

For the wallet of a budgeting squash pro, ten to thirteen dollar shuttles offer a sufficient plan B while thirty to forty dollar cab fares are a desperate last resort - unless you are able to share the ride with a cute brunette. For medium distance trips, if you can’t hitch a ride with someone, get creative in scheduling bus and train rides. On one mini-tour in 1999, for example, I was able to fly into Cleveland, take a train to Chicago, a train to Pittsburgh, a bus back to Cleveland, and fly back to Santa Barbara. Although airfare is the biggest part of the budget, I do get fantastic deals with STA Travel. This student travel agency does not seem to have a problem in looking past my non-student, non-youth status, though I think their insubordination might have something to do with the $5000 in annual flights that I book with them. The deal is that with a $20 International Student ID card, I can buy my flight at the last minute for prices that are well below all the major carriers, change the date of travel at any time for $25, and, best of all, fly in and out of different cities. For example, last fall I flew from Boston to Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale to Toronto for $440. This is only the tip of the iceberg, but you get the idea: when your prize money averages to only $200-$300 per tournament, an Andrew Jackson can comprise a fair chunk of your change.

The final variable in my tight budget, of course, is rent. I am able to avoid paying rent for most of the year because I am on the road almost all the time - I have played more than fifty tournaments in the past two years. I reason – for my own sanity’s sake – that a mobile apartment is better than a stationary one. My private studio is comprised of three bright red Wilson bags: one for my laptop, reading material, and files; one for my squash gear; and one for clothes and toiletries. My most important pseudo-bag, though, is my red Tartan fur collar jacket. In its pockets, I carry my MP3 player/radio/voice recorder, a camera, a book (currently Angle of Repose), a pad and pen, my glasses, cell phone, a toothbrush, and my wallet. Sometimes I do wonder what people think of me when they see me walking down the street with khaki pants, combat boots, a tartan, stubble on my face, a pair of limited edition Calvin Klein specs, and one hundred pounds of luggage strapped to my appendages! One friend in Cleveland always entitles her emails with "Where’s Waldo?" She’s much more playfully tactful than my highly skeptical mother. I guess when I stop to think about it, my image sort of equates to the world’s first homeless intellectual lumberjack en route to the X-Games. It’s brutal, I know. But, hey, at least I’m having the time of my life.

Besides, all this analysis gives me the perspective I need to be patient with strangers who look at me in a confused state upon receiving odd answers to such common questions as: "Where do you live?" and "How do you pay the bills?" I want to tell them that it’s not as bad as it seems or that, in fact, it’s not bad at all. I might lose too much credibility if I tell them the truth: that it’s a great lifestyle that just takes a little getting used to. After all, the singularly fortunate choice of becoming a professional squash player has given me the opportunity to sit here in San Francisco Bay, spoon a half-moon of mango and watch a fishing boat slice the rippling sea, and call it work.