La Vie Bohème
We drove our daughter to her student apartment this afternoon, like every Sunday. Just outside Santiago, on the road to Noia, there was a young woman with a sign that said "Noia". Every time a car went by she held up the sign, looking for a charitable soul. After we had dropped off our daughter we went back along the same road, and she was still there, only a little further on towards her destination. We decided to be the charitable souls and go out of our way home.
We stopped for her and put her backpack, tent, and sleeping bag in the trunk. She was young, in her twenties and very pretty. Her final destination was Finisterre, and if she couldn't hitchhike all the way, she would walk. She had already walked the Way of Santiago three times from France. Once, she had continued the Way to Finisterre, where the pilgrims originally used to end their pilgrimage by the lighthouse. That time, the last time, she had remained three months in the town, working at a café to earn some money to pay for her expenses. Then she decided to go back to Santiago. She then walked part of the Way in the opposite direction toward France and realized she wanted to go back to Finisterre because she loved the coast. So she's been hitching back. She was obviously not Spanish, her accent and her outlook on life betrayed her. She told us she was from Genoa, Italy. My husband found it very courageous of her that she would sleep in a tent all by herself by a roadside or in a field.
It's not strange. Most Spanish women our age and older do not consider themselves capable or safe travelling on their own. There are some who do so, but in the villages we know, most don't. When I first came here, almost twenty-five years ago, I would sometimes go for an all day drive. I would take the car and drive to Ourense, Ferrol, Vigo, or anywhere I felt like it. At the time I was single and had no obligations at home. When it would come up in a conversation that I had been to someplace, the person I would be talking to would first ask me, "And you went by yourself?" If the person talking with me was a woman, she would then say she could never get the nerve to take such a long drive all by herself. What if she got lost? What if something should happen and she needed help? What if she felt someone threaten her? Wasn't I scared that any of that could happen to me? Insularity at its best.
I wish I could have done like that young woman when I was single and free. My parents, however, were too protective and wouldn't hear of it. Would I let my daughter go on a journey like that? I don't know. I suppose that in the end I would have to, because it is her life and her decision. On some of my jaunts I have stopped and looked around me and felt where I was on this Earth. It would feel very far from home, but it was also a liberating feel. The idea of stopping here for two months, there for one, continuing down the road until I feel I come to a special place is a beautiful idea that I think is, unfortunately, too late for me to experience. It is not possible at this point in time. But perhaps someday, some way, it may come true.
We stopped for her and put her backpack, tent, and sleeping bag in the trunk. She was young, in her twenties and very pretty. Her final destination was Finisterre, and if she couldn't hitchhike all the way, she would walk. She had already walked the Way of Santiago three times from France. Once, she had continued the Way to Finisterre, where the pilgrims originally used to end their pilgrimage by the lighthouse. That time, the last time, she had remained three months in the town, working at a café to earn some money to pay for her expenses. Then she decided to go back to Santiago. She then walked part of the Way in the opposite direction toward France and realized she wanted to go back to Finisterre because she loved the coast. So she's been hitching back. She was obviously not Spanish, her accent and her outlook on life betrayed her. She told us she was from Genoa, Italy. My husband found it very courageous of her that she would sleep in a tent all by herself by a roadside or in a field.
It's not strange. Most Spanish women our age and older do not consider themselves capable or safe travelling on their own. There are some who do so, but in the villages we know, most don't. When I first came here, almost twenty-five years ago, I would sometimes go for an all day drive. I would take the car and drive to Ourense, Ferrol, Vigo, or anywhere I felt like it. At the time I was single and had no obligations at home. When it would come up in a conversation that I had been to someplace, the person I would be talking to would first ask me, "And you went by yourself?" If the person talking with me was a woman, she would then say she could never get the nerve to take such a long drive all by herself. What if she got lost? What if something should happen and she needed help? What if she felt someone threaten her? Wasn't I scared that any of that could happen to me? Insularity at its best.
I wish I could have done like that young woman when I was single and free. My parents, however, were too protective and wouldn't hear of it. Would I let my daughter go on a journey like that? I don't know. I suppose that in the end I would have to, because it is her life and her decision. On some of my jaunts I have stopped and looked around me and felt where I was on this Earth. It would feel very far from home, but it was also a liberating feel. The idea of stopping here for two months, there for one, continuing down the road until I feel I come to a special place is a beautiful idea that I think is, unfortunately, too late for me to experience. It is not possible at this point in time. But perhaps someday, some way, it may come true.
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