Wherever You Go, There You Are

This week, author Margie Smith Holt shares the essay she performed recently at a Writers Read event in NYC.

The blow knocked the wind out of me.

Thank God for the life jacket, keeping my head above water so I could breathe. I was flailing in the crystal blue waters of the Virgin Islands, next to a little sailboat that had capsized.

With me on it.

I needed to get the boat upright, pushed with all my might on the centerboard—which should have given me leverage—but the boat wouldn’t budge.

The sailing instructor—floating calmly, watching me struggle—righted the boat, with no help from me, and we clambered back on.

“Did you get hit in the head with the boom?” she asked.

“Yes,” I sputtered.

“Hard?”

“Yes.”

“Get used to it.”

Back on land I dumped a gallon of fresh water from a plastic jug over my head, wriggled into dry clothes right there in the parking lot, and raced to a burger shack called Skinny Legs where I was “a waitress” in much the same way I was “a sailor.”

And thought, not for the first time, what the hell was I thinking?

I had been on television in Philadelphia. A star reporter! Always camera-ready. There was proof of this, even in the remote tropical outpost I now called home. A bartender had discovered one of my old 8x10 glossy headshots and tacked it up over the cash register, MANAGER ON DUTY scrawled underneath.

“Hey!” said my boss of 16 months, genuinely surprised, when he saw the publicity photo. “You used to be on TV?”

He could be forgiven for not knowing. His newest waitress didn’t look like she even owned a mirror. I had ditched makeup. Couldn’t find my blow-dryer. The last guy to cut my hair delivered beach snacks from a powerboat.

My journalism career—which I loved—had come to an abrupt end three years earlier. I was forced out for—take your pick: Too old? Too expensive? Too mouthy? Today you’d get a lawyer. Back then you just moved on.

Next came a PR gig. Not a passion, but a steady paycheck and better hours. Perfect since I wanted to get married and have kids.

When that dream blew up too, I did exactly what no practical, rule-follower ever imagines doing: I chucked it all.

Quit my job. Sold my car. Bought a one-way ticket to the Caribbean.

“What are you going to do?” sneered the ex. “Swab the decks?”

I didn’t know. Maybe.

“Is this some kind of a mid-life crisis or something?” asked one of the millennials at the office.

I was about to turn 40 so … hard to argue with the math.

I moved with no plan, vowing to do nothing resembling my old life, but my old life stalked me in the form of a local newspaper editor who tricked me into writing again.

Instead of presidents, I interviewed pirates.

Wherever you go, there you are! a T-shirt hanging in the Jolly Dog souvenir shop taunted.

Being an island “reporter” had its perks. I wore flip-flops to work and “researched” over rum cocktails. At long last, a chance to test my theory that a glass of wine or two might make me a better writer! I interviewed Santa Claus—off-duty—at the bar. Santa drank vodka soda with a splash of cranberry.

“How’s your daughter doing down there?” relatives asked my mother. “Has she found herself yet?”

“I don’t think she’s looking,” she replied.

How are you really doing? my friends wrote. Have you changed?

Yes! I’d say. I look like I did when we were 13!

Like when we were girls, mapping our lives.

“Was it hard to make such a drastic leap?” people still ask. They mean the change of address but harder, by far, was leaving television. That first career change. I had defined myself for so long by what I did: Reporter. Who was I without the title?

Uprooting forced me to figure it out.

I did finally learn to sail. I sailed across the Atlantic in a 30-foot boat with no engine and a bucket for a bathroom. For 16 days I didn’t see land. It was an epic adventure.

And later, when back-to-back hurricanes destroyed the paradise that shaped my future, I covered the story.

Twenty years since that life-changing move, I’m a different person. Still a journalist. More myself than ever.

Margie Smith Holt is a four-time Emmy-winning journalist. Her first book, NOT ON ANY MAP: One Virgin Island, Two Catastrophic Hurricanes, and the True Meaning of Paradise, was published in 2023. Find her at margiesmithholt.com or follow her at Margie Smith Holt on Facebook and @msmargarita1 on Instagram.

This essay was performed as part of the live show for Writers Read. If this is the first time you are hearing about Writers Read, go to their website, writersread.org, to learn about the amazing work they do!