Monday, May 17, 2010

Tales of a Female Nomad


The title of this book at first made me think of the weirdest women put together into one traveling around aimlessly.
I still dove in and found that while it is far from my "life" it still had some very interesting ideas about life. I realized after the first few chapters when I checked that this is nonfiction so the 'real life' aspect brought me a bit more into the story.
It is about a woman who decides that the conventional United States life isn't for her anymore and leaves to travel in non-English parts of the world. In many ways I had a more difficult time identifying with her because she was in another stage of life completely. She felt free and made this decision after her kids were grown and she ended up divorced.
Yet she does comment (where in I stopped typing and spent way too long trying to find the quote unsuccessfully...arg!) that when she talked to people in the United States men just sort of looked at her like, "wow, interesting life" as opposed to women who had a sense of awe talking with her. She doesn't seem to be making a gender judgement, but in talking with people found that many women have dreams of doing something (travel or otherwise) but often don't do it for a variety of reasons, responsibilities, fears, etc. She often in her book described how she found herself wanting to so something and then realizing that with a few simple steps she could do it.
I wonder myself what "dreams" I have, and if I am trying to accomplish them, or just keep looking at them and sighing. I hope I can go get them as best as possible.