THE GREAT CIRCLE, by Tiffany McGinn

Tiffany at Ha Long Bay, North Vietnam, as she travels the Great Circle.

Tiffany grew up in Texas, Massachusetts, and Southern California, and earned a B.S. in Molecular Biology from University of California, San Diego. She has done research at Salk Institute and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as well as in the private sector. Her hobbies include mountain biking, SCUBA diving, and writing.

 

Let me start this by telling you a little about me. I have an inquisitive mind, some might say nosy; I have always wanted to know what was going on in life, both internally and externally. I'm highly intelligent, but love being a kook and just letting loose, silly style, and while I can be easy-going, I will stand up for myself when I feel it is warranted. I have battled with my weight for as long as I can tell, along with a number of other self-esteem issues, the same problems that have affected many other women, and have struggled to define myself in this world where it seems that everyone wants you to choose a box and stay there: be a brain, a sexpot, a homemaker. In my life, I have been all three and more, and usually at the same time. My problem was and is that I don't fit neatly into a box, and no matter how hard I tried to in the past, no matter how hard I squeezed and pressed myself, I never fit in the box for long. I would paint myself a costume, and as long as I didn't move too much, I could blend, but pieces of me always poked out, revealing the disguise for what it was.

As for what makes me fabulous? I suppose if I had been asked that 10 years ago, I wouldn't have even understood the question. As a teen, I was a tough kid in a tough space going through the paces of life day by day, trying to survive. Having a belief in myself was a foreign concept; I knew that I was strong and resourceful, had survival down pat, but when I looked into the future, there was nothing, a dark hole. I was frozen. My life finally started when I decided to detach myself from the thick wall I built around myself, and started living, instead of just surviving.

I used to spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, wondering why amazing things would happen to others, miraculously, while I was left with the dregs of what was left. Eventually, I realized that opportunity was something that had to be met half-way; the door opens, but I have to be open as well to both recognize it and decide to walk through. Opportunity isn't something that just happens to people, although people who know me seem to be under the impression that it does, because I have had some really amazing opportunities to work and travel, but it took hard work on my part to bring them to fruition. I decided a long time ago that I didn't want to be one of the those people who, late in life, looks back with regret at all the things they didn't do, the places they never experienced, the people they didn't pursue, that language they never learned, the person they didn't become. That was when I made my first active decision to be a participant in my life, instead of a spectator. As such, I opened my eyes to the world, and when the chance of an opportunity presented, I pursued it. I became an extrovert because my shyness created a loneliness that I couldn't bear. I became adventurous because I couldn't bear the thought of sitting in my home, watching others on TV doing the things I dreamed of. I jumped out of airplanes and swam through underwater canyons because the sensation of freedom is sweeter than any drug or drink that has ever existed.

When I was 23, I thought I was at the top of my game. I had gained admission to a prestigious school for science to study Molecular Biology, had secured a job at the Salk Institute, a top research institute for biology, and had won a fellowship to do research at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I was strong, fearless, untouchable -- and then I was hit by a drunk driver on New Year's Eve, and became a statistic. The discs in my lower vertebrae were blown, and I went through a year of tests and surgeries, each worse than the last, and watched as day by day, my very ability to walk slipped away. In the end, I needed to have a double spinal fusion, where they fused my lower three vertebrae and wrapped a titanium cage around my spine to keep it in place. They told me that a successful surgery would mean that I regained 65 to 75 percent of my previous mobility, and I may not know for over a year whether the surgery was a success or not. One week after my surgery, I was in so much pain that I feared I had made a mistake in having the surgery after all.

Once again I had a decision to make: either wallow in my condition and be a victim of my circumstances, or I could decide to be a participant in my life. The stakes were high; one of my deepest fears has always been losing the ability to take care of myself, and I was as helpless as a lamb. I chose to live, no matter what, and pushed myself, every day. I set small goals for myself: today I will make it to the bathroom on my own, next I will walk out to the living room, next I will walk downstairs. I watched the Travel Channel and Discovery, and made notes about all of the places I would go to one day. Every day was a new victory, and soon I was walking, then swimming, then hiking. Within five months, I had already regained 75 percent of my mobility, and as I was cruising the airfares on a travel agency's website, I found a fare to Europe for $300, round-trip. Something clicked, I had the money, and I knew that this was the trip I HAD to take. Opportunity had presented itself; all I had to do was step up.

On that trip, I went to all of the places I had promised myself I would go. I traveled for two months, backpacking from Italy to Brussels, from the gothic beauty of Prague to the emerald green of Ireland, and learned how to be self-sustaining again, how to stop thinking of myself as a victim, an invalid, and instead began to see myself as a whole person, with just a little extra titanium that the average bloke. By the time I returned, I had achieved a miraculous recovery, according to the doctors. I had regained 85 percent of my mobility, and no signs that my recovery had completed yet. Returning to college, I learned how to S.C.U.B.A. dive, and explored Caribbean wrecks and held sharks in my arms. I found a way to go to Moscow and learn Russian, and reveled in the city under the twilight skies of the Muscovite summer. I knew that I have been given a new lease on life, and to this day, I am determined to make the most of it.

A few years ago, while still in college, my grandfather posited a challenge for me: travel the Great Circle, which is the line that covers the circumference of the earth as it passes through the equator, and stop off in each country that falls on the line. Political strife and social unrest were not allowable excuses for skipping a country, only declared war or other legal issues were permissible. Also, this challenge included the requirements that I maintain a website during the trip, and write a book about the experience, in any form, fiction or non-fiction, that it might take. If I agreed to these terms, he would fund part of the trip. I accepted.

So, I am on the go again, backpacking the globe for six months with a good friend of mine and writing a book about my experiences while on the road. This line will take me through Southeast Asia on into Asia, then down to the Middle East and North Africa, and finishes off in South America. The only countries on the line that I will skip, which include Viet Nam, India, Israel, Algeria, Mauritania, and Peru to name a few, are Saudi Arabia and Iran, both of which did not allow unaccompanied women to travel alone in their countries at the time of planning. Already, I have worked at an orphanage in the Philippines, creating a web site for the facility, and learned to surf in Bali, Indonesia. This trek is about exploration, both externally and internally, and I can't wait to find out who I'll be at the end of it. I don't know what is in store for me, but I do know that wherever I go, I'll have myself, and that's the best ally I could ever ask for.

 

Check out Tiffany's website as she travels the Great Circle.