4. Here comes the sun

Here in England, the days are getting longer, and as of the 12th of April we’re allowed to meet people for food and drinks (albeit wrapped up for fresh ‘al fresco’ dining).

For me, aside from seeing friends and getting my long-awaited haircut, this means that I have more options for reading. From plowing through audiobooks on my walks, to reading physical books with a coffee outside a cafe, my world is slowly opening up.

Still, as travel isn’t an option yet, books are my best escape to other places. One I discovered via personal recommendation is Rita Golden Gelman’s Tales of a Female Nomad. In Regan-era USA, Gelman was a 40 something mother of college-aged children, and escaping a stifling marriage. She decided to go to Mexico. From this started the seeds of over 20 years of a nomad’s life, including time in Borneo, years in Indonesia… and even a spell in my native New Zealand! (Though her audio narration belies her spending less than a year there, her pronunciation of Maori words is… not great). It’s a wonderful read for people wanting to understand how people do bold things. While Gelman is privileged (she’s a blonde American children’s writer who can work anywhere), she doesn’t shy away from talking about the mistakes she made along the way, and her struggles with judging people who had very different values from her own.

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Miscellany