When
I was 8, I pooed myself at my grandmother’s house, and I threw my
panties into a bush. When I grew up and became a writer, that instinct
remained with me. Whenever my articles are published, I have to suppress
the urge to duck and hide. I prefer to hurl my writing into the ether
and pretend nothing happened. Because, like a lot of neurotic,
introverted writers, I think everything I write is shit.
The hiding becomes problematic when you write an article that goes viral. This happened to me a year ago with an article I wrote for Cosmopolitan.com
about my decision to leave New York and move to a rustic island. The
essay was shared nearly 600,000 times on social media. Within 12 hours
of it being published, I was invited on to the Today show. It also caused a bit of a to-do on my island of 4,000 people who didn’t necessarily want the attention.
Being
a focal point in a small town and on social media gives you a unique
perspective on the human condition that no sociology class, book, or
“expert” can ever teach you. You learn what it is to be a polarizing
entity either loved or hated, like mayonnaise or country music.
What’s
ironic is that I’d given up writing. After 10 years working as a writer
in New York, the desire to write had flowed out of me as
unceremoniously as water draining from a bathtub. That part of my life was over,
I thought. Golfers lose their swing. Porn stars lose their youth. I
lost my words. This was around the time I lost my desire to live in New
York. So I moved to the Virgin Islands where I took a job scooping ice
cream - and later, bartending - and wrote nothing for four years.
It’s
hard to explain why I made such a drastic change except to say that I
wanted my life to be the opposite of what it had been. I still loved -
will always love - Manhattan, but one day, I woke up and everyone was on
their phone. That last year in New York, it seemed I saw more screens -
and the tops of people’s heads bent over those screens - than actual
faces. And if you’re waking up with the sensation that there has to be
more to life, then there is. I wanted to look out my window and see
amiable palm trees, not defiant skyscrapers. Instead of being shoved
through the air in elevators, I wanted to ease into the sea. I wanted to
get out of my head and work with my hands.
Moving
was easy because I was a single woman in my 30s with no husband or
kids, and I did not own a home. It was difficult because I had little in
the way of savings. This is not because I have expensive taste. I made a
great living my last few years in New York, but my income never seemed
to stretch far enough in Manhattan. Like a too-small bikini bottom,
there was always barely enough to cover my ass. My first six weeks on
the island, I rented half of a full-size bed, which I co-slept in with
another person until I found my own place.
For
a while, my only piece of furniture other than my bed was a strappy
vinyl lounge chair I’d dragged in from the deck. That’s where I took my
meals and carried out my sitting-related pursuits. I pretended I was at a
pool party to which nobody showed up, including the pool. It was
ridiculous, but I loved that chair, its out-of-placeness. Anything can
happen, it said. You can still jump into the water with your clothes on.
After
four years, I’d progressed to a moldy hand-me-down couch and a
quavering Wi-Fi connection. I rarely checked my email. One day I did and
there was a message from an editor I knew back in New York. “Hey, are
you still living in the Caribbean?” the email began. “I’m over at
Cosmopolitan.com now and we were thinking about doing an article about
someone who moved somewhere to live a totally different life. Would you
consider writing about moving to the Virgin Islands?”
My last effort at writing before leaving New York was a middling memoir
about facing your fears that received rave reviews from several members
of my own family. Still, I considered the email. I could use the money.
And surely I could manage a first-person essay?
Or so I thought.
Trying
to write again was to play a card game for the first time in years and
realize you’d forgotten the rules. Words came clumsily when they came at
all. Anyway, what was I supposed to write about? How I’d recently found
a chicken in my bathroom while I was peeing? How I was happier scooping
ice cream in my 30s than I was in my 20s getting well-paid to interview
Tom Hanks on the red carpet? In the end, that’s exactly what I wrote.
With apologies, I emailed it to my editor and hurled it out into the
universe.
Incidentally,
I was drunk when the article came out. My boyfriend and I had a rare
day off together.
We did not hit happy hour so much as happy hour hit
us. I didn’t know the story was being published that day, but suddenly
my phone began pinging with messages from family and friends who had
come across it online. The large-lettered headline read: “Why I Gave Up a
$95,000 Job to Move to an Island and Scoop Ice Cream.” Beneath the
title was a snapshot a friend took of me on a nearby beach, in which I’m
leaping across the sand wearing a bikini and a vast smile. My arms are
flung wide, and I’m clutching a fedora that I’d gleefully whipped off my
head at the last second. It is a moment of bright, unguarded happiness.
It also looks like an ad for tampons. But I didn’t have many pictures
of me on the island by myself. Maybe I’m alone on this, but I feel
awkward breaking ranks from a group shot, saying, “Hey, can you get one
of just me?”
That evening - right around the time the full, gale force of my hangover kicked in - I received an email from a producer on the Today show.
“Sweet Jesus,” I said.
“What?” My boyfriend peered over my shoulder.
“The Today show wants to interview me about the article over Skype - oh my god- tomorrow morning? With Matt Lauer. At 8 a.m.” I cast him a wild look.
“That’s fantastic! You’ll be great!” He’s ruthlessly cheerful, which is normally one of my favorite qualities about him.
But
I hadn’t done TV in forever. I sat up on the couch, leaned toward my
reflection in the nearby glass door, and regarded myself with a gimlet
eye. Raisins have been more hydrated. My hair resembled Tippi Hedren’s
after she’s attacked by the seagulls in The Birds. Not to
mention that I have an ungainliness on camera that brings to mind one of
those amusement park animatronic shows that hasn’t been oiled in years.
“I can’t,” I wrote back.
“Are you sure?” the producer pressed. “What about the following day?”
“Do it!” my boyfriend urged. “It could be fun!”
He
was right. I should do it. To say no is unprofessional and insulting to
the publication that hired you to write the story. No more ducking and
hiding.
Soon
I was sitting before my laptop, trying not to look like someone in an
internet hostage video as I Skyped with Matt Lauer and Al Roker. It was
over in two minutes. Order restored to the kingdom! Life would return to
normal.
Or so I thought.
Hundreds
of Facebook messages from strangers flooded my inbox. People asked for
advice about making a major life change. People asked me to call them.
People asked if they could come stay with me. Publications produced
articles about my article. The Daily Mail’s site
published a story about me, complete with a selfie of me with my tongue
sticking out I took on a friend’s phone as a joke when she wasn’t
looking. They’d found the photo on her Facebook page and published it
without permission. Within 24 hours, a writer for Elle.com published a
rebuttal titled “Sorry, I Don’t Want to Quit My Job and Move to an Island.” Then there’s that craven, lawless grotto known as The Comments Section.
A
curious thing happened when the world moved online - suddenly everyone
became a published writer, but everyone became a critic as well. Maybe
that’s why I shrank away from writing? I couldn’t handle the new reality
in which everything I created would be torn apart immediately by
hundreds of people - and the tearing down also witnessed by hundreds of
people.
“So what if people write about you?” my boyfriend asked.
“Because,” I sputtered, “the point of being a writer is that you get to have the last word!”
People
wrote that my story was an example of first-world privilege. For
others, it was a smug affront to their own life choices. Some commenters
loved me, some hated me, some wanted me sent off into space via
rockets. Many had an unhealthy attachment to the caps lock key. A small
sampling of comments: “She looks annoying,” “dumbass,” “spoiled twat,”
“princess bitch face.” More than a few reminded me that I was staring
down the barrel of middle age and needed to get my life together.
Another opined, “She missed her place in a red light district, stupid
girl.” Then, this bit of poetry: “Please kill yourself.”
A
part of you wants to say, “If I wanted your opinion, I’d call the
nuthouse and ask to speak with you.” But being berated by strangers is
so contrary to the normal social order that it takes your breath away.
People write with such deranged intensity, you think, I wouldn’t want to come face to face with this person without bank window Lucite between us.
Yet many of them post under their Facebook profile. To the left of
their vitriol is their full name, place of work, and a picture of them
incongruously snuggling an infant or beloved pet. You think, How can you say this while holding a Maltipoo?
Even
more baffling is when the information is simply wrong. “She doesn’t
even live on St. John anymore,” one person wrote. “I have it on good
authority she’s moved back to New York.” One commenter pronounced me a
“trust fund bitch,” which is not true (except the bitch part). There was
little point in correcting them. They’d created in their head a
narrative about the kind of person I am, not caring if it was the truth.
People who are determined to be right cannot be reasoned with.
Still,
I was surprised by the insults directed at my family. Maybe “surprised”
is the wrong word. More, I wanted to plunge my hand through the
computer screen and into the offender’s chest and pull out their
still-beating heart ‘Temple of Doom"-style. Except they obviously didn’t
have one. Commenters accused my mom and dad of being bad parents;
sometimes they’d looked them up and referred to them by their first
names. One person tracked down my father’s financial information and
posted it in the comments section of my article. We’re all familiar with
the vile behavior of the internet, but it’s arresting when it’s
directed at you.
Also,
I was not prepared for the reaction of the small town
I love that had
been inadvertently thrust into the spotlight. Many people enjoyed the
article - or told me so anyway. But the local paper ran an editorial
declaring that there was “grumbling” among residents that my article
would “ruin what is actually great about the island.” Some islanders who
settled here years before thought me a self-satisfied upstart. One
local woman started a Facebook debate saying I hadn’t lived on St. John
long enough to write about it. The thread garnered over a hundred
comments. “She thinks she’s so special? I moved here with only $100 in
my pocket!” someone groused. “GREAT! Now every asshole in the world is
going to move here!” said someone else. To which I wanted to say, “No, I
think we hit our quota with you, pal.” I was accused of exploiting the
island for personal profit and I was told I should donate my “proceeds”
(which amounted to less than I make during a normal bar shift) back to
the community.
A St. Johnian woman I’ve never met sent a letter to the Today show producers asserting that they never should have interviewed me. Then she sent several aggressive messages to
me. “When you actually have some real 'time’ on this island, maybe we
can talk,” she wrote. “Until then, you are a tourist, not a local … You
are not to be paid attention to.”
Believe
me, I don’t think I should be paid attention to either. I’m beside the
point. The point is, if the article inspired even one person to live the
happiest version of their life, that’s all that matters. The rest is
not to be paid attention to.
It’s
been over a year since the article came out. People still send me
letters telling me I changed their life, updating me on their new
journeys. But I can’t really take credit. I simply nudged someone to
make a change that they, in their heart, had already made. It’s funny.
Writing an essay that started with a chicken in my shower turned out to
be the most meaningful accomplishment of my life. It’s unfathomable and
humbling, having strangers say you inspired them to leave a job,
relationship, or place they weren’t happy in - even when others told
them it was a terrible idea.
I
don’t anticipate this article going viral. But I hope it inspires at
least one person to stop thoughtlessly heaving crap into the universe.
As for myself, I think the lesson is the opposite. To stop thinking
everything I write is crap because someone didn’t like it. Try as I
might, not everyone is going to like my writing. Not everyone is going
to agree with all my life choices, or yours.
All you can do is hope people find their own island of contentment - whatever it is. And wish them well on their journey.
Noelle Hancock is the author of My Year With Eleanor.
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