Yesterday, I read Vanessa Vaselka's essay about female road narratives, which discussed in depth how the archetypal young man is finding himself on the open road while the archetypal young woman is running away from something horrific at home. When a woman travels alone, the thinking goes, she is setting herself up as a victim, perhaps even of rape or death. Some of her commenters disagreed, providing Hollywood narratives and personal anecdotes of positive experiences on the road.
Intriguing.
I've traveled a fair amount as a solo woman. Unlike Vanessa and many of her readers, I don't hitchhike and I carry a nice camera and purse, so my experiences are skewed with the knowledge that I look like a better target for theft than anonymous murder. I am confident that I can handle that threat. I know I have the memory to describe a thief accurately and the wherewithal to notice one in the first place. I can get out of sticky situations that threaten me physically. I believe that, generally, people are helpful and well-intentioned. Most of the time, they are. Still, I always have that niggling voice in the back of my mind telling me to look out for danger.
A few summers ago, in Barcelona, I napped on the airport shuttle, panicked when I woke to an announcement, and got off a stop too early. I had a heavy backpack and two smaller bags slung across my body. The Plaça de Catalunya conveniently has a subway station, but I was unprepared for the ticket machine and didn't quite know where I was going. As I stared at the screen, mentally translating Catalan to French, then to English, someone came up to the machine next to me. I noted him, vaguely, as I tried to decide whether a three-day pass or a week-long pass would be better. And then I felt a tug. I whirled to my left, slapping his hand away from my zippered pocket, swearing at him, cataloging his dark hair, grimy and scruffy face, nondescript button-down and jeans, hunched demeanor. He tried to beg for money. I repeatedly said no, said go away, said he couldn't have a thing, said I felt him try to get into my pocket, said get the fuck out of here. And then I left myself.
But I only retreated around the corner. My heart was racing. Everything was crystal clear about the situation, except what I should do next. If I knew where to find a cab - Barcelona must have cabs, right? - and could trust that the guy wouldn't follow me outside to keep on pestering me, then maybe I would go in search of one. It was quickly getting dark, though, and it was probably not worth his while to follow me through the gate into the subway. I rearranged my bags so that my computer and purse were in front of my body, then carefully peeped out into the station. The man wasn't there, I was sure of it. I couldn't see any hiding spots for him either. He'd left. So I visualized how to get the three-day pass in Catalan, then returned to the ticket machine.
And yet, as I pulled out my billfold, the man reappeared over my shoulder and neatly lifted a 50 euro bill. I hit him, like a parent hits a toddler whose hands have wandered too close to something dangerous. I hit him and grabbed everything in his hands - 55 euro, and was the 5 euro bill also mine? It didn't matter. I was furious. He tried to argue. I yelled right back. He tried to take the money back. I held it tighter. He turned away, and I put my billfold away. From the other side, he reappeared to spit on me, then finally departed. And then, trembling from the shock, I managed to put one of the crumpled bills into the machine and collect my change and pick up my ticket and get through the gate and find the correct platform.
That night, with adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I was on heightened alert. Instead of pulling out a book or a map in the subway, I kept my back against a wall and my head on a swivel. The buskers on the train, who I'd normally enjoy watching, were potential distractions for another thief. One hand was locked around the shoulder straps of my purse (next to the zipper, natch), the other balled into a loose fist. I met no one's eyes. I wasn't quite the victim - I'd triumphed - but I'd very nearly been and it was my own fault for being so overt with my money. I could not let it happen again.
And so.
When Vanessa Vaselka talks about how people thought she was "so abysmally stupid...in the first place that she deserved" whatever came to her, I remember chastising myself for being so stupid as to pull out an entire purse with 50 euro bills visible. When she talks about the incomprehension on people's faces, I see every person who has ever looked at me in surprise that I would want to travel alone, and not just alone, but alone for a whole month without a plan sleeping in the same hostel rooms as men. And then I see my own lonely self, in Amsterdam and Rome, wondering if they were right, whether I was just running away from something. I question whether the lack of an archetype is why sometimes I laugh at people who ask if I want to write a book - I can't even imagine how to frame a memoir.
But why should it matter? Well-behaved women seldom make history, I'm told, and Joseph Campbell describes any hero's journey as fraught with challenges and temptations. Indeed, the adventure isn't much of one at all if it goes smoothly. I can fight back against the rote role I'm supposed to fill just like I fought back against the pickpocket. I don't need to accept that there is no need for another writer in the world, or that my role as a solo traveler is victim, or that bad things are my fault. There are good people out there who have offered me food and lodging and the ability to charge my phone without posing a danger; they are the people I choose to place my faith in. I choose to believe in my own abilities to navigate foreign countries alone. I choose adventure.
Intriguing.
I've traveled a fair amount as a solo woman. Unlike Vanessa and many of her readers, I don't hitchhike and I carry a nice camera and purse, so my experiences are skewed with the knowledge that I look like a better target for theft than anonymous murder. I am confident that I can handle that threat. I know I have the memory to describe a thief accurately and the wherewithal to notice one in the first place. I can get out of sticky situations that threaten me physically. I believe that, generally, people are helpful and well-intentioned. Most of the time, they are. Still, I always have that niggling voice in the back of my mind telling me to look out for danger.
A few summers ago, in Barcelona, I napped on the airport shuttle, panicked when I woke to an announcement, and got off a stop too early. I had a heavy backpack and two smaller bags slung across my body. The Plaça de Catalunya conveniently has a subway station, but I was unprepared for the ticket machine and didn't quite know where I was going. As I stared at the screen, mentally translating Catalan to French, then to English, someone came up to the machine next to me. I noted him, vaguely, as I tried to decide whether a three-day pass or a week-long pass would be better. And then I felt a tug. I whirled to my left, slapping his hand away from my zippered pocket, swearing at him, cataloging his dark hair, grimy and scruffy face, nondescript button-down and jeans, hunched demeanor. He tried to beg for money. I repeatedly said no, said go away, said he couldn't have a thing, said I felt him try to get into my pocket, said get the fuck out of here. And then I left myself.
But I only retreated around the corner. My heart was racing. Everything was crystal clear about the situation, except what I should do next. If I knew where to find a cab - Barcelona must have cabs, right? - and could trust that the guy wouldn't follow me outside to keep on pestering me, then maybe I would go in search of one. It was quickly getting dark, though, and it was probably not worth his while to follow me through the gate into the subway. I rearranged my bags so that my computer and purse were in front of my body, then carefully peeped out into the station. The man wasn't there, I was sure of it. I couldn't see any hiding spots for him either. He'd left. So I visualized how to get the three-day pass in Catalan, then returned to the ticket machine.
And yet, as I pulled out my billfold, the man reappeared over my shoulder and neatly lifted a 50 euro bill. I hit him, like a parent hits a toddler whose hands have wandered too close to something dangerous. I hit him and grabbed everything in his hands - 55 euro, and was the 5 euro bill also mine? It didn't matter. I was furious. He tried to argue. I yelled right back. He tried to take the money back. I held it tighter. He turned away, and I put my billfold away. From the other side, he reappeared to spit on me, then finally departed. And then, trembling from the shock, I managed to put one of the crumpled bills into the machine and collect my change and pick up my ticket and get through the gate and find the correct platform.
That night, with adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I was on heightened alert. Instead of pulling out a book or a map in the subway, I kept my back against a wall and my head on a swivel. The buskers on the train, who I'd normally enjoy watching, were potential distractions for another thief. One hand was locked around the shoulder straps of my purse (next to the zipper, natch), the other balled into a loose fist. I met no one's eyes. I wasn't quite the victim - I'd triumphed - but I'd very nearly been and it was my own fault for being so overt with my money. I could not let it happen again.
And so.
When Vanessa Vaselka talks about how people thought she was "so abysmally stupid...in the first place that she deserved" whatever came to her, I remember chastising myself for being so stupid as to pull out an entire purse with 50 euro bills visible. When she talks about the incomprehension on people's faces, I see every person who has ever looked at me in surprise that I would want to travel alone, and not just alone, but alone for a whole month without a plan sleeping in the same hostel rooms as men. And then I see my own lonely self, in Amsterdam and Rome, wondering if they were right, whether I was just running away from something. I question whether the lack of an archetype is why sometimes I laugh at people who ask if I want to write a book - I can't even imagine how to frame a memoir.
But why should it matter? Well-behaved women seldom make history, I'm told, and Joseph Campbell describes any hero's journey as fraught with challenges and temptations. Indeed, the adventure isn't much of one at all if it goes smoothly. I can fight back against the rote role I'm supposed to fill just like I fought back against the pickpocket. I don't need to accept that there is no need for another writer in the world, or that my role as a solo traveler is victim, or that bad things are my fault. There are good people out there who have offered me food and lodging and the ability to charge my phone without posing a danger; they are the people I choose to place my faith in. I choose to believe in my own abilities to navigate foreign countries alone. I choose adventure.
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