By process of elimination—Nepal had no jobs, Indonesia was too volatile, India was impractical—the answer became Thailand. For its Buddhism, its jungles, its relative prosperity and stability, and, most important, its unfamiliarity. I knew nobody in Thailand nor did I know anyone who’d ever been there. (American college students who backpacked in those days tended to favor Nepal or Latin America over Southeast Asia; Thailand wasn’t on the circuit.) I knew nothing about Theravada Buddhism, orchid cultivation, or the language. I had eaten Thai food only once and had never even seen The King and I. I had neither preconceptions nor expectations.
After the Quaker Oats debacle, I took the decisive next step of purchasing a shiny copy of Fodor’s Exploring Thailand for a steep $21.95. I clutched it to my chest like a Girl Scout pin, daydreaming about possible encounters with people based on the book I was carrying. It’s the perennial reader’s fantasy, the hope that the right book will magically spur strangers into intimate and telling conversations or elevate your standing in the eyes of people you already know.
“What’s with the book?” someone, perhaps a professor or a desired acquaintance or an old boyfriend, would ask in this imagined scenario.
“Oh, this?” I’d respond blithely, relishing their fascination. “I’m moving to Thailand.” Nobody I knew did such a thing. All the go-getters were going into investment banking and consulting; the arty types often relied on trust funds; the brainy ones and preprofessionals escaped into grad school. Everyone else scrambled, desperate not to be left behind. They had plans.
This was before gap years were in vogue. This was before the Internet shrunk the world and everyone was just a text away. Letters traveled slowly and international calls cost a fortune. In 1993, tossing your college degree into the wind and moving to a remote town in a third-world country with no job was the equivalent of someone today flinging his iPhone into the sea and joining a religious cult in rural Kentucky where everyone speaks Esperanto and reassembles old Hyundais for money. It made no sense, and it probably meant something was wrong with you.
Well, I’d show them. Summoning the heroes previously met only in books, I began to fancy myself a kind of female Joseph Conrad, departing from my native land, traveling over distant seas, defying convention or at least the expectations of my classmates, professors, and family members. This was my way of joining the Merchant Marine. The more I defended my decision to other people, several of whom thought I was throwing away a promising career, the more I started to believe in it. I told my mom, I told Career Services, and I told my roommates, all of whom had secured smart jobs in major cities. I told my father, who liked to read about the Far East in Paul Theroux’s books and watch it on the Discovery Channel; for him, travel was something done from a recliner.
“That’s wonderful, Pammy,” he said. “I’m not paying for your plane ticket.”
Now that I’d told everyone, announcing my plans repeatedly, a retraction would have meant an inconceivable embarrassment. I sold my 1985 Honda and bought a nonrefundable one-way ticket to Chiang Mai, a small city of 150,000 people (“really an overgrown village,” according to the books) nestled in the hills of northern Thailand.
By March, “What are you going to do next year?” became the standard campus greeting, replacing “How did the interview go?” Everyone was telling each other what offers they’d taken, salaries, cities, significant others, where she was, where he was, where they were all going. They were moving along.
“Really, Thailand?” people would say when I shared my vision. (Sometimes—I am sorry to report—“Taiwan?”)
“Maybe for two or three years,” I’d reply casually, saying something vague about adventure and opportunity and the expectations of women and why the hell not. I would free myself from material possessions while I was at it, packing a single suitcase, minimal clothing, a few books, and, of course, Bob. I cut off my hair and colored the remaining blond pixie dark brown. I willed myself to feel tougher about the fact that I hadn’t had the guts to go for what I’d really wanted.
“You’re so brave!” people would finally say, probably for lack of anything else. Perhaps they were writing me off. I didn’t necessarily feel like I could take credit for the move. It seemed more like 5 percent of me had made a firm decision and dragged the unwitting other 95 percent along. I had no idea whether a new lifestyle would make me feel more fulfilled or whether it would prove I’d been happy all along and merely unappreciative. This wasn’t something that could be figured out by reading a book. Sometimes you need to go out and search for the answer. But it took a book to push me along.
CHAPTER 9
Anna Karenina
Heroines
Every girl has her heroines. Mine were the ones who had motivated me in biographies, ever since I was eight years old, curled up in my favorite part of the children’s library, the back wall where, neatly arranged in alphabetical order, were my sacred lives: Abigail Adams, Louisa May Alcott, Clara Barton …
If I wanted to know what other girls my age had done and where it led them, I consulted these books, these people who had already lived well, for instruction. I listened to them, tried to follow in their footsteps and learn from their mistakes. In their stories, and with the wisdom of hindsight, any awkward childhood encounter or passing trauma could be seen as a necessary step toward a greater future.
Poor misunderstood Helen Keller needed that moment of frustration by the water pump. Jane Addams had to suffer her childhood illness and the death of her mother when she was only two years old. I’d never be as good as Florence Nightingale or Dolley Madison (the name Pamela, which my mother had chosen because it was the title of the first English novel, also meant “selfish,” my Baby Name Guide cruelly informed me), but I could try. Maybe the kid at recess telling me the flood was over when my hand-me-down Lee jeans were too short was a hardship I needed to suffer.
Bookish girls tend to mark phases of their lives by periods of intense character identification. For almost a century and a half, we’ve fluctuated between seasons of Amy and Meg and Jo, imagining ourselves alternately the prettiest or the eldest or the most ambitious of the Little Women. But every girl who aspired to become a writer fancied herself as strong and independent Jo.
When I was ten, I aimed to be as clever as Nancy Drew, resolving any dilemma with purpose and grit. On the cusp of junior high, I was turned on to horse-girl books by my friend Ericka, who actually rode horses. (I was too scared.) She got me involved in a series starring a girl named Francesca, my next role model. Both Ericka and Francesca had long, shiny chestnut-brown hair that was nothing like my mess of dirty blond. Horse girls were strong and fearless and altruistic; they knew how to jump.