Gokcen Ergene

La Concha is big. It’s a big big hotel. I am one of the 4 guests staying at La Concha in San Juan, Puerto Rico. With all the hurricane warnings and the incredible rain, only a few of us call this a vacation. Well, I am not here for a vacation. I am not here for any specific reason, to be honest. I am here because it’s 2008, I am 31, the world is still turning, time doesn’t end when you don’t believe it, I love coffee, I am reading a book on qualities, Bushmills is great whiskey, I do not wear checkered shirts, my father was a dentist and a clarinet player, I am going to make a feature film next summer, I wear size 42 shoes, people say I have nice hands.

None of these are reasons to be in San Juan, I know. But maybe there is a gap somewhere between those facts that requires me to be in Puerto Rico today and I am here because I trust that space between actualities, the space that makes room for the black hole between one’s justifications; the slot, the vent, the crack, perforation. Leonard Cohen said there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. So just because I or you can’t pinpoint it, it doesn’t mean the reason doesn’t exist. For the confused reader, let’s note that I am not talking about fate. Fate is a manmade concept. I try not to believe in manmade notions.

As a result of the space between, well let’s say, my father being a clarinet player and Bushmills is great whiskey, I am in San Juan. What? How? This is why: One lives a narrative no matter what. The narrative has two authors; one’s self and the world. The world is always willing, it’s the good writer, so disciplined, working 24/7, helping build your narrative relentlessly, it makes nature, it makes people, it makes places, it makes food, it makes love, it makes hate, it makes cars. It makes the props. You are the lazy collaborator. You only work on your narrative when you want to, you don’t fill in your part as much as you should. You owe the world.

So I came to San Juan because it’s my responsibility, because I owe the world and I have to pay my debt before I get out of here and my co-written fragmented narrative comes to an end. As a result, I am in San Juan on business. My responsibility to my narrative and the world at large is much bigger and inflexible than the rationale for vacation. I am not here to rest and swim in the pool, well, it’s also raining like crazy. My business trip so far has been good, I feel that I am paying back what I owe to the script of my life each time the bartender wonders what the hell I am doing here for the other 3 people staying at the hotel at least seem to take pictures. Now, I am going to get up from this chair, walk over to the bartender and explain my reasons, why the business of the world is important and why I had to come to San Juan to pay a debt and how it’s vital one honors his contracts with the world; the debt to the Act 2 of my life so the paragraph can now read:

“His father was a clarinet player. He went to San Juan in 2008. Bushmills is great whiskey.”

One sentence at a time.