by Biddy Wells
‘So do you really think people have a problem when they meet a single woman travelling in a van?’ I asked.
‘Yup, definitely. Couples shun them because they pose a threat to relationships, and single men wouldn’t risk being taken for a ride of one sort or other.’
It had simply not occurred to me that I might have been viewed as this troublesome, threatening, desperate creature. I had never seen myself as anything other than a middle-aged woman wanting to learn self-reliance, see some beautiful places and find out who I was in the face of challenge and unfamiliarity. Mark’s comments made me realise why I had felt so isolated in Spain, why I had been barred from the campsite on Boxing Day and why some people had treated me with caution: they’d probably been afraid that I was needy and might attach myself to them, or worse. Oh God! I had been so naive! And it was just as well; otherwise, I never would have set off in my humble, rusty little van, driving five thousand miles through strange lands. Also, I realised that, if what Mark said was true, I had been fortunate to have met so many people who did talk to me and treated me simply as a fellow traveller. Ignorance was bliss indeed.
Epilogue
It’s halfway through the year and approximately midway between the end of my solo journey to Portugal and the beginning of my next trip. David and I plan to travel through France and northern Spain to Galicia, then meander down through the length of Portugal. There’s so much that I want to explore in the north of the country, and we hope to be there when the almond trees are blossoming. I am very happy that we are going together and I think it will be a great adventure. I’ve come to love Myfanwy, and although I had planned to sell her after my trip, I can’t part with her. She won’t be coming on our next trip, though, as we are going in David’s motorhome, which is a converted horse box. It will be slow, but it has all we need for a long winter voyage.
For now, though, I am here in west Wales, enjoying the summer and revisiting my adventure as I read the journal I wrote along the way. Writing about my trip has been an experience in itself, and yet, very much part of the journey. In fact, there has been no end. Since I returned home, my life has been a continuation of the process that started before I even set off. When I try to pinpoint the start, I can’t find it. Was it the point at which I decided to go off alone? Or was it years before that, when it seemed that life wanted me to change, creating a storm and forcing me to find the still point in myself? Life is not explainable. I wonder if the Completion Backwards Principle has been operating by guiding my steps towards a destination that, all my life, I have always longed to get to: the discovery of my own state of peace.
The time I spent on the road was like time spent on an island, far away from all that was familiar and secure. It was a space into which something hidden became exposed and had the room to expand. It was not merely an escape, a temporary shelter; it was a an opportunity for revelation and transformation. The timing was perfect – I was ready. It took as long as it did for me to find home: home in myself. Now, it doesn’t matter where I am: I am home. I remember my daughter taking a photo of me driving Myfanwy on the day we left Wales, and she posted it next to a picture of snails she found in a rock pool, with the caption: ‘Other creatures who carry their home around with them.’ That seems so apt, except that I discovered I carry my home inside myself.
Looking at my notes and remembering it all has given me another bite of the cherry. I am reliving it. Ultimately, the story had a ‘happy ending,’ though the last month was surprisingly challenging and felt like a test. I wondered if it would taint the entire thing, but it hasn’t. Being on a road trip – really being – and being alone so much was extremely valuable, and I continue to benefit from it. It’s not so much about the things that happened, which might later be remembered or forgotten, but more about a transformation – modest though it might seem – that took place. I gave something away, lost something that I have not been able, or inclined, to pick up again. I am changed. And while I see myself going through life’s inevitable ups and downs, I know that I have met and made a life-long friend of someone I had never got to know very well before.
In fact, it is not a person. It is me: the being, the unchanging, the constant one who is there always, beneath the projections, the memories, the conditioning, the personalities that perform, the programmes that run. Beneath all that, before that, after that is something, or perhaps nothing. It is empty and yet full, completely satisfying and sufficient. Have I been brainwashed? I hope so! I hope my mind has been washed clean, and, to some degree, washed away. I do feel as though I have lost my mind, or, at least, I have been released from its grip. Things look different. Life is sweeter, softer and more joyful than I ever dreamed it could be.
I have come to see that to be alive, to consciously experience this incredible world, is precious beyond measure. It is miraculous. It feels like being madly in love. Life goes on with all its light and shadow, but inside there’s a deeper, almost secret reality, one that everybody has, whether or not they know it. It makes me smile to know that the real thing is truly wondrous and it’s always there underneath, just watching.
Parthian, Cardigan SA43 1ED
www.parthianbooks.com
First published in 2017
© Biddy Wells
ISBN ePub ISBN:978-1-912109-91-3
ISBN Mobi ISBN:978-1-912109-90-6
Cover design Syncopated Pandemonium
Cover by Biddy Wells
Interior illustrations by Seren Stacey
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