BoomerGirl Diary

In my early 20s, I spent a summer armed with a Eurailpass and a backpack, trekking alone across Europe. I’d get on trains at night to sleep and wake up in the morning to a surprise destination. I traced the steps of favorite authors, screamed along with the crowd at the running of the bulls in Pamplona and read Thomas Mann on a beach off Venice. I got my passport stamped at Checkpoint Charlie and explored the back streets of East Berlin in the shadow of the Wall. I hitchhiked across England. I resolved that I would always travel, that I wouldn’t be tied down by work and family. Not me. I would never get trapped by domestic responsibilities like my mother. I’d nurture my free spirit. I’d never be afraid to take risks.

Yeah, right. Back in the States, I smacked up against real life. Like, how do free spirits support themselves? So, I did several years in graduate school, taught college, became a therapist, writer and, later, mediator. Along the way, I fell in love, got married, had kids. I ended up in Kansas. Not Paris, not New York, not even some adorable coastal village in New England with easy access to international flights, but Kansas. Weirder than that, I like Kansas. I discovered an affinity for open skies and no traffic jams. I love my town. Not that I didn’t try to keep some small pieces of the dream alive. ... In my 40s, I developed a sideline as a travel writer, but my focus was mostly regional: family and budget travel in places like Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma. Sure, we’d annually head east to visit family, or west to visit family, or south to visit family. But we never really got away. Not far, far away. Well, England, but that hardly counts. No fear factor there.

Cut to 30 years later. Cut to this very minute.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to Chile. Yes, that long, skinny country in South America. Where they do not speak English. OK, I’m going for a convention for five days, the Society of American Travel Writers, which I just got into (bringing the grand total of members from Kansas to four). But then I’m going to explore. Alone. No spouse, no kids, no schedule.

I’m practicing my Spanish, trying to get my menopausal brain to recall tenses first learned decades ago. Back then I remember perfecting phrases like “Where is a bar with music?” and “Does this hostel have a curfew?” Now I’m working on “Is this a safe neighborhood?" and “My back has gone out.” “Como se dice ‘hydrocodone’?”

The preparation process is different, too. Then I threw jeans, T-shirts, passport and cash in a backpack. Now I make detailed lists that start with prescriptions to treat my deficits ... thyroid, hormones, that pesky IBS, back spasms. I’ve laminated multiple copies of my passport and emergency data. I obsessed over finding really comfortable walking shoes that adequately support my drooping insole. Now, in our guest room (“the staging area”), I sit in the blue wing chair and look at the neat piles from which to make final selections. I’m too anxious to actually pack. It seems so important to make the right choices, like everything will be ruined if I pick the wrong outfits. It’s “Deal or No Deal” angst with a real suitcase.

In my 20s, I was fearless, naïve, trusting. Now I am not. The world has changed, undoubtedly, but so have I. A part of me wants to stay safe. But the other part, too long ignored, wants to break out of the complacency. What happened to that free spirit? Is she still alive after 30-plus years of childrearing, care-taking, domestic chores, and the unrelenting demands of my chosen profession? Is she lurking in the side streets of a Chilean village? Will she elude me or will we meet again?

And here’s another thing: 30 years ago I worried only about myself. I didn’t chew my cuticles about what or who was left behind. Now I worry about my kids, my clients and work, even my spouse. I feel selfish and guilty. I’ve put chili and lasagna in the freezer to tide hubby over. He’s a perfectly competent adult male, but I think he will disintegrate in mere weeks without my lasagna.

But he won’t. He’ll be fine. Everyone and everything will be fine. I just have to get on the damn plane.

Here’s the plan. First spend a week in the Santiago area for the convention, explore neighborhoods and parks, museums and galleries, good restaurants and music, lots of music. Take a day to see the wineries that ring the city. Then fly down to Puerto Montt to the lake district. I may climb a volcano, ride horseback in a forest, river raft. Then board a boat to Chiloe, a mist-covered archipelago off the coast. I want to stroll the markets of Ancud and Dalcahue, see the historic, small wooden churches, observe the complex mix of cultures. I want to navigate the Butachauques Archipelago, stop at the village of Quemchi, eat “curanto en hoyo” cooked in a pot over stones. They say there are penguin colonies. I really want to see penguins, lots of penguins, not in a zoo.

And then? I can’t say where for sure because I don’t know. Definitely Valparaiso, the port city built on hills so steep cars cannot go up. Maybe the high desert. Maybe the mountains. I want to have a week, just one week, with no agenda, no responsibilities, no one to worry about, just going were the wind blows. It has been too long.