I was waiting for the F train Monday morning, my paper open on the story of Aaliyah’s death. Next to me an old woman caught sight of the story and said: “Sad about that young singer. Guess you don’t ever know how life’s gonna turn out.”
She had voiced the very same thought that was in my head.
Just four days before, I was in a bar in the Bahamas – and Aaliyah had been asleep in a hotel room just a short walk from where I stood.
Now, I was on my way to work – and she was dead.
That Thursday had been the last day of my vacation with an English friend and her family, who own a house on Abaco Island. We’d gone to the local marina nightspot for a final drink.
The bar was usually quiet, August being the off-season on Abaco, but that night I spotted five guys sitting across from us. They beckoned me over for a chat.
They said they’d just flown in from L.A. to shoot Aaliyah’s new pop video and were working on a hellishly tight schedule. The guys had to get up at 4 a.m. the next day to film her on the local beach.
They’d hired a catamaran and had flown in 40 crew, including backup singers, for the two-day shoot.
That evening, they said, the director was entertaining everyone in his room at the marina hotel and they’d slipped out for a drink. Aaliyah had gone to bed early to rest up for the next day. I pictured the beautiful, successful pop singer sleeping blissfully nearby.
“God, you’re so lucky,” I said. “How brilliant to have a job that allows you to work in a paradise like this.”
They smiled ruefully. The trip was going badly, they said. The lighting equipment hadn’t arrived from Miami, and they were due to set up in a few hours time. My new drinking pals admitted that they were continuously anxious about what might go wrong.
“We may look like we’re just chilling out and enjoying a beer,” said one, “but underneath we’re living in our own private hell.”
Yeah right, I thought. Some private hell. The next day, as I packed to go home, the sun shone brightly and the sea was a post-card turquoise, warm and calm. I could hear distant beats from Aaliyah’s new song being carried over the breeze as the crew shot their video from the far side of the beach.
With classic end-of-vacation blues, I dreaded returning to New York.
My vacation hadn’t exactly gone as planned. I had promised myself I would use the trip to kick-start a whole new healthy, centered me.
As my friend and I landed in the Bahamas, we vowed to live on Greek salad, exercise every day and cut down on the booze. Instead, we’d spent the week gleefully tucking into plates of deep-fried conch fritters and getting hammered on rum punch.
Our broken pledge had made the indulgence all the more fun.
Still, during quiet moments while gazing at the sea, I did take some time to reflect on my life. On this vacation, it seemed, I could only see questions, which turned into worries: Would I ever find a boyfriend I could be happy with? Where was my career going? Should I be living in New York?
As I sat in the small propeller plane flying back to Miami, I tried to shake these blues. So I looked out of the window at Abaco Island one last time. I idly imagined Aaliyah on the white beach below, her whole fabulous life ahead of her.
One day later – flicking through TV channels late Saturday night – I caught the news of her plane crash.
My self-indulgence vanished.
I thought of that last night at the bar, the singer’s entourage worrying about their shooting schedule, me feeling angst about my future – and Aaliyah asleep in her room. None of us had the slightest idea what was about to happen.
Naturally, I worried that my bar mates were among the eight killed besides Aaliyah. (I later found out that they weren’t.) But I was haunted by the image of Aaliyah on Abaco, with no knowledge she only had 48 hours to live.
We all spend an awful lot of time worrying about the future. You imagine so many scenarios that seem so real – good and bad – but the truth is that you never see coming those things that most profoundly affect you. Suddenly losing a parent, finding a lover, getting a job offer: You can’t possibly anticipate those events.
Whatever you see happening in your life, it’s guaranteed to turn out differently.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t plan. I’ve always believed in taking charge of my own destiny. But the next time I get caught up in spinning future scenarios, I might focus on what’s happening to me today.
Even a simple thing like a morning exchange with an old lady on the train has a joy of its own.