Sunday, June 30, 2019
By:
“Now it reminds me of when my life was beginning and everything was new and full of ideas, for days when I have more memories than ideas.” Francisco Santos, the Colombian ambassador to the US, said that in an interview with Express. He was talking about Taco Bell.
I’m a young man, but sometimes I feel like I’m fuller of memories than ideas. Sometimes I feel that lingering injuries are getting in the way of my having more ideas: I’m stuck on the memory of them, like a leaf blocked by a river rock from flowing downstream. A journalist’s main work is to be full of ideas. Stories I’ve heard recently about seasoned reporters’ career paths hinged on pitching concept after concept to editors, and finally getting an assignment. Or else, giving one of their more glimmering stories to an employed reporter, who would pass along the concept, which the applicant hoped would impress by its merit.
Those stories don’t square with the head-down, do-your-duty image I had of climbing the journalistic ladder. Maybe it’s the having to reorient my plan and my thinking, but I head these stories, and I see journalists downstream, and I wish I could join them. I wish I could be free of my rock. I often have difficulty coming up with story ideas, and I like learning about things once I hear about them—but I have to hear about them.
I’ve had—and have—many privileges in my life. One of the most central to who I am, and one I almost never think about, is that I have always been surrounded by interesting ideas. Growing up, my mom showed me how to escape into a book, and had the saintly patience to speak to a young, excited boy about what he found there. I spent most of my childhood in Santa Fe, where there are so many complicated, painful histories woven together that one can take the tapestry for granted. I went to Sarah Lawrence and Oxford, where I was exposed to the depth and color of the world. Ideas, in short, found me.
I read Ambassador Santos’ quote on a solitary commute to work, on that lsat leg of the train journey between the Fort Tottam and College Park stations in which I either have the train car to myself or share it with one other passenger in a silent kind of intimacy. I felt foggy this week, and I have been feeling stuck on the rock more than ever. My work had started to highlight some insecurities—social anxiety, doubt in both my intelligence and myself—that tend to crop up when I get face-to-face with the simple requirements of my chosen career.
Worst of all, I couldn’t do the crossword. I had forgotten a pen and was therefore forced to spend my trip sifting through Express’s deepest sections. I found Mr. Santos’ quote in a feature about ambassadors like to eat in DC when they’re feeling homesick. The Georgian and Mongolian ambassadors sang praises to authentic hidden restaurants, and the delegate from Bahrain told a story about how a certain dish at his chosen spot helps him reconnect to his childhood.
Mr. Santos confessed that his guilty pleasure was Taco Bell. He got a taste for Combo No. 1—for the uncultured, that’s a burrito supreme, hard-shell taco, and a large drink—during his undergrad days at UT Austin. “Now,” he said, “it reminds me of when my life was beginning and everything was full of ideas, for when I have some more memories than ideas.”
What a melancholy thought, Mr. Ambassador. That was my first feeling. Then the trees caught my eye—the train was passing through that other-worldly section of forest that greets Yellow- and Green-Line passengers between Prince George’s Plaza and College Park. Something about that section made me sit up straighter, and I got a sort of insight into the ambassador’s thinking: when he spoke about his days being full of memories, he wasn’t talking about negative ones. Not entirely, at least. He was talking about the memories he made at UT Austin, of working towards promoting democracy in Colombia, and of serving the country he loves as Vice President for eight years.
I admit that I may not make VP of Colombia. I do have some of those wonderful memories of my own, though, and I think I’ll have more soon. This internship will be one. So will the people with whom I’m honored to share a few months. With the sudden infusion of perspective, I couldn’t help but think I might be on a rock now, but the ideas will come.
Ambassador Santos’ quote is hanging to the right of my computer, emblazoned on a Post-It note, as a reminder that my time, for now at least, is one of ideas.
Jeremiah O'Mahony