Bodacious Tenacity

From the outside, I might look like a very brave person.

I’ve been a journalist for 30 years, I’ve lived all over the world and I’ve had plenty of exciting adventures (in a future issue I’ll tell you about the the time I was followed by a lion!). The truth is, however, that there have been many times when I was faced with a decision or wanted to make a move and was really unsure of myself. I didn’t feel brave. I felt afraid.

Somehow, fear didn’t outweigh my desire to act or overwhelm my tenacity. It might have even enhanced it.

Reflecting on these experiences got me thinking about the way others persist through fear, so I decided to start a podcast. In true meta fashion, I’m afraid to start a podcast. Guess what? I’m doing it anyway.

Moving to South Africa wasn’t even my own idea. Sort of.

I was in my third year as the assistant to the bureau chief in the Washington, DC bureau of the Sunday Times of London, a job I adored. It encompassed doing research and a little reporting for all of his stories and his books, as well as the research for any ST staff member around the world.

Being a generous boss and mentor, he encouraged me to do my own stories. So by the end of the third year, I had a small column in a British business magazine and had done a few pieces for American magazines.

One October day he sat me down and said I was fired. For my own good. He said I’d gone as far as I could go in that office and it was time to move on. Knowing how much I loved my job, he upped the ante by suggesting I try reporting from abroad. “We’re the Sunday Times,” he said, “you can go just about anywhere.” He offered Hong Kong, Moscow and Johannesburg and told me to think about it overnight.

The next day, as I drove my old Honda to work, the choice became crystal clear: Johannesburg. I wanted to go to South Africa so I could live there while Nelson Mandela was president. I’d be able to tell my grand-children about the experience one day.

When I told the bureau chief he smiled, wheeled his chair around towards his desk and began to write introductory letters to his contacts in Johannesburg. As it happened, the ST correspondent was moving on, so I had the chance to take her place — not as a staffer but as a stringer, which means freelancer. In another stroke of luck, a former ST executive had relocated to Johannesburg and offered to let me stay at his home when I first arrived.

Over the next few months I read a book about South Africa, sold most of my belongings, figured out how much I could pack in two suitcases, sold my Honda and turned my few dollars into rands. I was about to start a new adventure and I imagined myself as a sophisticated woman elegantly gliding through Heathrow towards my glamorous new life.

By the time I got to Heathrow I was a mess. I didn’t think I had the courage to go through with my plan so I sat in the airport bar drinking scotch on the rocks. At a certain point I went to a payphone (it was the ‘90s) and called my step-father.

“I can’t do it,” I sobbed into the phone. He laughed. “Yes, you can. Just get on the plane. You can always come back. Get. On. The. Plane!”

“Okay, I’ll try,” I said before hanging up. I picked up my bags and started walking out of the bar. But where was the gate?

I found a monitor with the gate number. It was miles away and the sign was blinking BOARDING. And that’s how I ended up running through Heathrow drunk and crying. So much for my image of a sophisticated woman elegantly gliding to her new adventure.

Miraculously, I got to the gate in time and slumped in my window seat at the back of the plane. After take-off I gulped down a few glasses of water and tearfully fell asleep. About five hours later I awoke to the sound of the captain announcing that we were about to cross the equator. I looked out at the vast sky, imagined the invisible line below and began to feel actual joy. Making it that far on my journey felt like a tiny victory.

By the time we landed in Johannesburg, my body was pulsing with excitement. I was traveling in Levis and a white T-shirt and needed a shower, but I dutifully put on maroon lipstick in an effort to obtain a hint of glamour.

As I emerged from customs to a throng of people speaking at least a dozen languages, I saw a tall man holding a hand-printed sign with my name. My host, the former ST executive, had sent his driver to collect me. I felt like a movie star.

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