Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [44]
I was touched by Angela’s thoughtfulness. And flattered, too. I had come to admire her very much.
Later that evening, while thinking about how I had let myself depend on the kindness of these three women, I suddenly bumped into a new thought: the realization that something in me had loosened, the way a knot loosens, and I had allowed myself to lean on someone else. Over the years, without noticing it, I’d subscribed to the notion of independence as a condition that dictated complete self-sufficiency. That I should let go—even temporarily—of such a ridiculous idea came as something of a surprise.
That night I had a dream: Mother and I are sitting on the back porch in the sun. I am a little girl and she is washing my hair in a white enamel basin. Later she dries it with a towel and begins to braid it. I love the feel of her hands in my hair and I lean back against her body, overcome with happiness and contentment.
Three days after the onset of my illness I awoke at five in the morning. Immediately, I knew something was different. For the first time in several days, I felt hungry. I’m well, I thought. Whatever I had is gone and I’m well. I sat up and looked through the window. Outside, the stars were growing pale. I pulled on a robe and stepped onto the balcony.
Daylight was just starting to color the sky. London was not yet awake. But the birds were. From somewhere above me a dozen speckled birds appeared, flying through the sleeping sky in tight formation, passing near enough that I could hear the flap, flap, flap of their wings rowing the cool morning air. As they moved away, they called to one another, their shrieking cries trailing behind them. Seagulls? I wondered, remembering I’d read somewhere that on windy days, the gulls can be blown inland to London. Were they heading for the ocean?
Wide awake now and caught up in the euphoria of feeling well again, I imagined myself an adventurer, flying solo like Amelia Earhart through the night skies, through the stars, into daylight. I thought suddenly of the book Angela gave me. It seemed the perfect time to start it.
I carried a cup of tea and a scone with me out onto the balcony and settled into a chair. Opening the book, I turned to the first page and read a passage written from Baghdad by Freya Stark in 1929, when she was thirty-six years old. It began:
To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasant sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it.
Immediately I felt the little thrill I always get upon opening a book and finding inside the voice of a kindred spirit. It happens sometimes in life, too, that immediate sense of kinship. I felt it when I met Victoria. And Sarah. And Angela. Particularly Angela.
Of course, I knew that the kinship of strangers, particularly those met while traveling, is often a temporary kinship. But who’s to say length is the yardstick by which to measure such encounters?
I decided I would take Freya and my three new friends with me when I moved on. I could see it now, Freya leading the four of us through the gardens of Baghdad. Or Freya crossing the desert on camelback, followed by four women, in matching sweater sets, riding behind in a boxy maroon car. But she wouldn’t be scornful of us, not if she’s the Freya I think she is. She would understand some of us are more comfortable walking in the foothills of adventure than climbing to the summit.
And Freya would understand that even though I wasn’t scaling mountains or crossing deserts in this, my Year of Living Dangerously, I was in