The crash

On finding clarity in a crisis.

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Lamu Island, Kenya.

The donkeys always woke first. I lay under a mosquito net and a lazy fan, listening to them clop along the beach below. These were the opening note to the morning melody: the lap of water on wooden hulls, the shouts of fishermen, the timeless call to prayer. Soon, the sun would be up.

I slipped out from the net while my husband slept, and set off to find the light. I grabbed my camera and silently padded downstairs, picking my way around empty bottles and the remnants of last night’s revels. Clearly, I’d slept through quite the party. Our friends’ wedding was tomorrow, and the rest of the guests would arrive shortly. By the time they landed, the chaos would be cleared, the long wooden table by the pool laid with platters of papaya and warm croissants.

While my friends slept off the party, I wandered the winding stone streets of Lamu, an idyllic island town off the coast of Kenya. The honeyed light slipped from rooftop to rooftop then slid down the steep white walls, which were studded with coral and carved with stars. The paths twisted away from the sea and back again, a new delight at every turn. Around one corner, a baby donkey under a frangipani tree. Around another, a raspberry burst of bougainvillea.

For a moment, I was almost content. In the mornings, I could lose myself in the astonishing beauty of it all. Marriage had unlocked this lovely life and I told myself that was enough. But in the evenings, attending endless parties, I felt invisible to my husband. We circled each other like twin stars, physically near but never connecting. He was as drawn to crowds as I was to silence, our temperaments in a constant tug-of-war. Opposites had attracted at first, but with every passing year we found it harder to meet in the middle. I was ravenous for a hug or a quiet moment together.

Perhaps there comes a time in any relationship when you wonder: how happy is happy enough? Is this enough intimacy, enough attraction, enough attention? It’s all too easy to exist in this uncertain borderland for years without being forced to decide. I had thousands of photos of Lamu and none of just the two of us. I was trying to sustain myself on beauty alone and it felt like living on air.

By the time I got home, the house was stirring. The croissants were already on the table when my phone rang. It was the friends flying in. Their small plane had hit a pothole at takeoff and gone off the runway. Nobody was dead, but a wing had crumpled and crushed a friend’s leg.

“It’s bad,” they said. “Can you tell the bride and groom? Please keep people calm and keep this off the internet until we can reach her family.”

I don’t know why they called me. Perhaps they thought I’d stay calm, or perhaps they just knew I’d be up. I told them I’d do my best and ran upstairs to shake my sleeping husband. “Please wake up,” I said, my panic rising. “I need your help!” He rolled over and went back to sleep.

By the time he stumbled downstairs, the bride and groom already knew and the internet was alight with the news: the rush to the hospital, the frantic calls for blood donations, the medical evacuation flight. Friends huddled in anxious knots around the dining room table, chain smoking and swapping news. He dove into the whirlpool of worries with barely a glance at me.

My memories of that endless day are surreal fragments, still sharp to the touch. I remember the cigarette butts piling up in ashtrays next to the untouched croissants. I remember pacing by a pristine pool while donkeys clopped calmly by. I remember planting myself in front of my husband and finally demanding a hug. For the briefest of moments, he obliged. Then he slipped away and I was alone again, barefoot under a blazing sky.

I think I remember the small things because I could not yet process the big ones: Just like that, a plane could crash. My sense of safety could shatter like glass at any time—and when it did, I was dependent on a partner I could not depend on. Even in a crisis, I was on my own.

Eventually the friend’s health stabilized. The wedding went on the next day with half the guests missing. We toasted and danced, still reeling but determined to salvage the celebration.

I was sitting alone at the edge of the reception when one of my husband’s friends came up to me and said he had noticed our unusual hug the day before. Then, out of nowhere, he asked, “Do you think you two would have still married if you hadn’t met so young?”

I do not think he meant to be cruel, just to note a tender moment in a day of turmoil. But his unexpected question shone a 1,000-watt spotlight on my sadness. In noting the exception, he had named the absence: It had taken a plane crash to get a hug.

“No, absolutely not,” I snapped without thinking, amped on adrenaline and champagne. Then, stunned by the weight of my own words, I turned and walked out of the wedding. I heard my own truth clearly for the first time: I would not choose this marriage. I could no longer exist in the ambiguous borderland of maybe good enough. My words were a bell that could not be un-rung.

Five months later, when Covid opened a portal in the universe, I would walk through without looking back. I would get on one of the last flights leaving Kenya before the borders closed because I knew in my bones that I could not ride out another crisis alone. My pain would become a source of power. The flight that didn’t take off built my courage to take the one that did.

I didn’t know any of that the night I walked out of the wedding. When I arrived home, I crawled under the mosquito net, the wedding music booming in the background. Loneliness curled up next to me and stroked my hair until I fell asleep. In the morning I would slip out from the net while my husband slept, and set off to find the light.

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One of the unexpected joys of starting over has been hearing from others on similar journeys. If something resonates with you, I’d love for you to leave a comment, drop me an email or share a post with a friend!

Liz is a writer and photographer based in Brooklyn.