All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [41]
I wake up each morning and sit in the hot tub with Maya, who comments on the pink-streaked sky and mentions that a coyote went skulking through the pasture right before dawn. Then, at nearly ninety, she dips into the cold pool, and I, at half her age, have no choice but to splash in after her, shivering awake and ready for strong coffee. She dresses, and we go inside where she begins to knead her sourdough bread. I go off to spend the day writing and hiking in the hills behind the ranch with a big dog by my side. In the evening, after a swim, I chop vegetables, drink wine, and talk about politics with Maya and whichever of her diverse friends has arrived from distant parts for dinner.
Maya has a lot to discuss, since she’s lived quite a life. After her divorce in the 1970s, which seemed to light a fire under her, she became passionately involved in political causes, from welfare rights to Central America, supporting grassroots movements, particularly those organized by women; along the way she ran for the U.S. Senate. After her husband left and her children grew up, she expanded her family to include taking care of the wider world, and in return, so many people look after her. She lives modestly on her ranch, for all the money she gives away, and doesn’t travel much anymore, but she enjoys hearing about my trips.
She has created a wonderful atmosphere in her old age, surrounded by friends. The ranch is self-contained, full of calm and simple pleasures, with people always within shouting distance if you need them. It’s good to stay in one place for a while, peaceful and comforting to feel part of an extended family, safe and protected and loved.
BUT I CAN’T hide out in Nevada forever.
Even back when this was a divorce ranch, the society women had to leave after six weeks of carousing with the cowboys and take the train back to New York. I have to go back to work, back out into the world, and get past my fear. Because as afraid as I suddenly am of being alone, of being hurt, violated, victimized—all the worst-case scenarios of being a single, independent woman—I am more afraid that I am going to lose touch with some essential part of who I am. I’m not sure who I would be if I were not, at heart, that kid who wanted to hop freight trains, was unafraid to walk around the cobblestone streets of San Miguel de Allende and try to chat with the locals, who idolized glamorous Brenda Starr, went three thousand miles away to college, and then set off to travel in the Mediterranean alone. I only know I would be depressed, and I am not, by nature, depressed. I have to get over this.
So I wave good-bye to Maya, put the top down, and drive over the Sierras back to San Francisco. It is one of the few times, at home, when I wish I had a regular job to get up and go to every morning, instead of trying to engage in the optimistic and uncertain business of coming up with ideas and stories and trying to sell them. I pitch a bunch of article ideas, none of them quite right, nothing moving, until one day an editor calls and asks if I could please do a quick story about bicycling in Provence, focusing on the food and bringing along a female friend who also likes to ride. This is one of those moments when you scrub and scrub and then a fairy godmother appears and waves her magic wand. Of course I’d like to go to Provence with a friend, in safe company.
Because I’m still feeling nervous about traveling, I ask someone very familiar and comfortable, whom I’ve known my whole life, to come along—my cousin Charlotte, who is an extraordinary cook and speaks perfect French. I know she will be as eager as I am to sample the ratatouille, tapenade, figs, pastries, and wines of the region, to taste the simple, rich pleasures of a cuisine that Roger Verg