Tales of a Female Nomad

by Rita Golden Gelman

  I find Belcarra on a map. It sits at the end of a peninsula, forty minutes from downtown Vancouver. To get to it, you have to drive through a national park. Sounds intriguing.

  The house is spectacular. I step inside and feel as though I am still outside. Only glass walls separate me from the trees and the sky. The house, natural wood inside and out, sits on a hill with a view of water and islands and pine trees and sky. From the kitchen and the patio, you can hear the brook that runs through the property. The massive bathroom Jacuzzi looks out at water and tall pines, through a tub-to-ceiling window. The view from nearly every window is breathtaking. And the house is elegantly but simply furnished.

  There are four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a deck. The owners tell me that the house has been empty for several months. I offer sixteen hundred U.S. dollars, which is about a third less than they are asking. It’s a deal! For three months. As an added perk, the owner is paying for a cleaning crew every other week.

  Now I need a car. Jan is driving a battered old Honda that used to belong to Mitch, and she’s been mumbling about wanting a new car. A three-month car rental would cost me fifteen hundred dollars.

  “How would you like fifteen hundred dollars toward a new car?” I propose. “I’ll take the Honda.” Done. I have a car and a spectacular house. Now for the guests.

  Sue and family are the first to see my new home. I invite them to spend the day at my little resort; the invitation includes a hike, dinner, and a Jacuzzi. Together we go through the kitchen cabinets. I told the owner that it was fine with me if she left baking ingredients and spices in the cabinets.

  Waylin, who is fourteen, decides to bake cookies. She is nearly finished with the dough when she discovers that we have no baking soda. “Let’s see if your neighbors have any,” says Waylin, and off we go. I haven’t even met them yet.

  Maria answers the doorbell. Waylin and I introduce ourselves and explain our mission. We meet Maria’s daughters, Atlanta and Natasha, and their father, Walter. And we leave with a tiny plastic cup of baking soda. Later that afternoon, we bring over a plate of cookies.

  There is also a neighbor on the other side, though we cannot see each other through the thick lot of trees. The owner of my house has said that if I am ever in trouble, I should call John, and she gave me his number. He’s a policeman.

  Two nights later I am leaving to meet Mitch and Melissa in a supermarket parking lot about twenty minutes away (there is not even a mom-and-pop grocery in Belcarra). They are arriving from Seattle between eleven-thirty and midnight, and I told them I would lead them to the house rather than have them try to read signs in the dark.

  At eleven-fifteen, as I am backing out of the hill, which is my driveway, my rear wheel goes over a curb and into the pansy patch. I can’t move forward and I can’t move back. I spend ten minutes trying to get out, but I just dig deeper in. The car won’t move.

  I decide to call John the policeman. It is late, but I’m in trouble. Mitch and Melissa will arrive to an empty parking lot and no directions. John’s wife answers the phone. I explain who I am and tell her my problem.

  “I’m so sorry,” she tells me, “John isn’t home. But you could borrow my car if you like. Then John could come by in the morning and help you with your car.”

  How kind. I have never even met this woman. I thank her and say that I will first try Walter on the other side; there are lights on in his house.

  Walter and Maria both come over to have a look. Walter tries to drive out, but he can’t do it either; so he goes home for their car and a rope, and he pulls me out.

  I like my new neighborhood.

  Belcarra turns out to be great for hiking, crab fishing, lying in my hammock by the brook, and having lots of guests. Jan, Mitch, Melissa, and Jan’s friends Craig, his dog Jasper, and Robin. Sue, Stephen, Waylin and Vicky, and even Innovette, my Taiwanese friend from Bali, who visits Sue while I’m in Vancouver. And Don, a university professor, and Dan, both of whom I also met in Bali. And many more.

  A couple of weeks after I arrive, Don takes me to a children’s festival where there are people painting people, others playing guitars and drums, others singing and dancing. There are balloons, plays, food stands, and even literary characters running around. We have been there for ten minutes when the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland rushes toward me shouting, “Rita, what are you doing here?” It’s Dan Vie. I met him when he was studying masked dancing and comedy in Bali. I love it.

  My favorite Vancouver activity is going to T & T supermarkets. I can’t stay away from them. They’re a chain of mammoth Asian supermarkets where you can get stuff for any Asian recipe anywhere. Sometimes I drive forty minutes into downtown Vancouver just to spend a couple of hours in this Asian foodie paradise. The exploding Hong Kong/Taiwanese population of Vancouver has brought not only brilliant and talented students, a wonderful mix of people, bilingual street signs, and fabulous restaurants but also this chain of spectacular supermarkets. You can buy duck’s tongues and shark’s fins, and Indonesian bird’s nests (at $250 an ounce). There are sixty different brands of soy sauce and forty varieties of frozen fish, including whole eels and cuttlefish and dace and sandgoby and keo fish. And there’s a wall full of thousands of frozen dim sum, and fresh mangosteens (the fruit the dying Tu Nini requested) in the produce department.

  And another wall of fish tanks with carp and tilapia and rockfish, crabs and shrimp and lobsters and clams and mussels and cockles, swimming and crawling and hanging out. My favorite live animals in the tank section are the geoducks, pronounced “gooeyducks” after the Nisqually Indian word gweduc, which means “dig deep.” They live around a meter down in the sand on the ocean bottom, sometimes fairly close to shore. They are the giant clams of sushi, chewy and sweet, and they can weigh up to seven pounds. The ones in the markets are usually between four and five pounds. The round, clammy part is as big as a man’s hand, but it’s the neck, or siphon, that makes these guys memorable. It looks like a huge brown phallus, it can be as wide as five inches and as long as three or four feet, and it expands and contracts.

  “I want one,” I tell Sue. “Do you know what to do with it?”

  “Yes, of course,” she tells me. And then she shows me how to squoosh the siphon before I weigh it so the water will squirt out. The siphon is the part that is sliced up raw for sushi. The part inside the shell can be fried or boiled.

  Sue does the cooking and I eat the neck part raw, like sashimi, and I am buried in fifteen by four inches of thinly sliced heaven.

  I spend a lot of time in my hammock by the brook, the water trickling down the hill toward the salty bay, the leaves rustling in the wind. I sit for hours in my Jacuzzi, reading, thinking, dreaming.

  Jan, Mitch, Melissa, Riley, and Abby come up often.

  My college friend Debby from Maryland arrives with her friend Pat. The three of us talk nonstop for three days, close, intimate, personal woman-stuff.

  June, our childhood friendship having been renewed at a high school reunion a few years ago, comes up from L.A. to work with me on a collaborative writing project.

  Marianne from the Sunshine Coast arrives to work on a joint book-project on nudibranchs, those gorgeous little sea slugs that I met when I was diving in Lombok.

  Kathy, an artist and friend from L.A. who now spends half the year in a wonderful old farmhouse on the Sunshine Coast (it’s through Kathy that I met Marianne), comes with her dog en route to L.A. I like being in the hosting mode.

  And Don, the university professor; Dan, the Mad Hatter; my neighbors Walter and Maria, who pulled me out of a ditch; and Bonnie and Brian, who live a couple of houses away, all become better friends as we exchange invitations.

  While I’m in Vancouver, the kids suggest that when my three months are up, I should rent for a while in Seattle. They want me closer. I’m flattered.

  Jan and Melissa and Mitch live within walking distance of each other, and they want me to try to find something nearby. After a couple of weeks o
f searching, we’re all getting impatient. Everything I see is a box. The only place that intrigues me is down the street from Jan.

  Nearly every day, en route to Pert’s deli for coffee, I walk by a “For Rent” sign on a ground-floor apartment that has Lake Washington in its backyard. The rent is fifteen hundred dollars a month, which is high for Seattle . . . and for me. To avoid temptation, I don’t even write down the owner’s number.

  Then one day, while Mitch and I are passing by the sign on our way to look at what we know will be yet another box down the street, we impulsively ring the upstairs doorbell. John introduces himself and tells us he and his wife are tenants; the owner doesn’t live here. John offers to walk with us around the back so we can see the view and peek in the windows.

  I like what I see. There’s a glass-walled living room that looks out on the lake. And a backyard with a boat dock. I do not own a boat, but I like the idea of having a slip, just in case a boat comes into my life. Who knows? If I live here, maybe I’ll buy a kayak.

  The apartment is unfurnished and I don’t own any furniture, but I can live with very little, and I love the location, the view, the picture window, the charcoal grill, the umbrella table, the benches, the dock, and the lake. And I like the second bedroom. If I’m going to settle in for a while, I want a guestroom. John says the owner is flexible and would probably give me a six-month lease if I ask for one. I give in and write down the owner’s name and number.

  I have plans to fly to New York the next morning, so Melissa meets Bron, the owner, at the apartment, with my check in hand. I call Melissa from the airport. She reports that the apartment is great.

  Then I call Bron. She and I talk until the plane begins boarding. Melissa has told her that I write children’s books. Bron tells me that she grew up with books; her father is a literary agent in New Zealand.

  As soon as I return from New York, I move in, with a futon and bed linens from Jan’s apartment, a table and three chairs from Mitch and Melissa’s house, one towel, one toothbrush, a bag of clothes, my computer, and a book. That’s it. No couches, dishes, glasses, silverware, pots, or lamps . . . not yet. I feel as though I’m still on the road, which makes the transition easier.

  The day I move in, I phone John, my upstairs neighbor. A woman answers. I introduce myself and invite her to stop in and say hello. I apologize in advance for the fact that I have no dishes and I won’t even be able to offer her a cup of tea, but I’d like very much to meet her. She tells me that John will be home in a few hours and they will come down together.

  It is already dark when the doorbell rings. I open the door and find John and his wife, Jip, holding a pot of tea, three cups, and a plate of cookies.

  The three of us sit facing the lake, at the lone table and chairs, in the dark unfurnished living room. It takes less than a minute to know that I am going to like them. John is a librarian in an elementary school and Jip is from Thailand. They met in a Cambodian refugee camp in northern Thailand, where John was a volunteer and Jip was a nurse. Three and a half years later, after they both finished graduate school, they married, with weddings and receptions in Seattle, Washington; Chicago, Illinois (where John is from); and Ban Krud, Thailand.

  I furnish the apartment from Goodwill, my kids’ closets, and a care package of kitchen utensils from John and Jip that they had packed up to go to Goodwill. (This is only a brief detour, since everything will eventually find its way to Goodwill.) Mitch and Melissa have extra glasses and dishes, a colander, and a few pillows and sheets. Jan has some pots and pans and towels. Jan’s friend Christine delivers a combination TV/VCR that she isn’t using. And Jan has a closet full of my mother’s paintings, which turn the place from a space into a home.

  I buy a twenty-dollar open-up couch from Goodwill and another for thirty-four dollars. I also buy four Goodwill lamps, a bunch of serving dishes, a small cast-iron frying pan, and a few low tables, one of which I put at the foot end of my futon, and two sets of placemats.

  Jan has also given me a good, firm double bed that she doesn’t want. I put the bed in the guestroom and opt to sleep on the futon on the floor.

  I finish my decorating with a couple of cotton throw rugs from Goodwill. The only new things I buy are a wok and a grapefruit knife with two close-together blades that straddle the sections; I’ve never seen such a thing before, and I can’t resist buying it.

  For the first time since I started my new life, I am living on my own in the United States. Over the years I’ve stayed with my mother for long stretches, with my kids and friends and family, each for no more than a week at a time. And I’ve had brief stints house-sitting and house-sharing. Now, I am about to live the life I decided, thirteen years ago, that I never wanted to live. My kids are here with their own lives and jobs and friends. I’m sure we’ll see each other a lot, but I don’t ever want them saying to each other, “Oh, God, we better do something with Mom on Sunday.” It’s not the doing I worry about. It’s the “Oh, God.”

  So, as I begin my six months in Seattle, I set about building my own community. John and Jip are my first friends. They’re responsive, close by, and spontaneous. Jip and I do yoga three mornings a week, we plant a vegetable garden together, take walks, have dinners. And twice we go to a Buddhist center for all-day meditation. I visit John’s school and talk to the kids about books and writing. And one day, early on, when I mention to John that it’s a terrible waste for me to have a boat slip and no boat, he tells me he has a friend with a boat and no slip. And that’s how I meet Tom.

  Within days there’s an eighteen-foot sailboat in my backyard, and Tom and I are sailing mates. Tom, who is in his thirties, single, and a child advocate in Seattle’s Department of Health and Social Services, is happy to have a pal to sail with. And I’m thrilled to be seeing Seattle from the waters of Lake Washington. Tom loves pointing out lakeside attractions such as Bill Gates’s mansion and hidden coves filled with spectacular homes. From time to time we tie up somewhere and go off for lunch or a walk.

  Tom is part of John and Jip’s extended Seattle family. Tom’s mother, Libby, welcomed Jip from the first moment Jip landed on U.S. shores. Now Libby is welcoming me, another stranger, at her potluck dinners. It feels good.

  Bron Richards, my landlady, also becomes a friend. Until I entered my nomadic life, I thought of “friendship” as a relationship that needs years to develop. To truly call each other friends, I thought, two people need a history together in which they share and celebrate and mourn the events in each other’s lives over many years. But my lifestyle doesn’t give me the luxury of a shared history, and I need friends.

  So, like other long-term travelers I’ve met (all women), I have learned how to compress time through introducing, early in my conversation, intimate details of my life. My “homelessness” is always a good way to begin. And I openly talk about my divorce, my discovery of a nomadic alternative to a traditional life, and the joy and occasional loneliness that goes along with it. Once I’ve opened the conversation with intimate details of my life, the usual superficialities of an initial conversation have been bypassed.

  Bron and I click immediately. She is recently divorced and still struggling with the trauma. The first time we talk (she has come by to cut the grass in the communal backyard), our conversation lasts through dinner. At some point I mention that I’m in the market for friends. The next day I get a phone call from a friend of Bron’s, inviting me to join a writers’ group, and a new set of friends is born.

  Being near the kids is fun. We get to spend a lot of lost time together. It feels very comfortable. I thought I was going to learn how to be alone in the U.S.; I never have to.

  Then one day, Jan calls me.

  “I just picked up a message on my answering machine from Lars,” she says. “Call him.”

  Lars is the chef I met in Lombok. I visited him and Nirin last year, in Nantes, France.

  He and Nirin are desperately looking for me. It’s 5:00 P.M. in Nantes and they just got a call fr
om their travel agent, who has found them a cheap ticket to Seattle. They have to pick up the ticket in the next two hours and be on the plane in Paris tomorrow. They need to know immediately if they can come stay with me. If so, they’ll be here at five tomorrow afternoon. I call France.

  Lars and Nirin will arrive half an hour before Don from Vancouver, who booked in for the weekend two weeks ago. (I’m glad I bought the open-up couch.) First I’ll meet the plane, then the three of us will meet Don’s bus.

  As I am planning dinner, I remember my week of gourmet eating in Nantes, when Lars cooked fois gras, vegetable puff pastry appetizers, fabulous shrimp, lemony desserts, homemade bread, and quiche. We breakfasted on personally preserved jams and snacked on home-cooked chutneys.

  How do you cook for a great chef? I decide the only direction I can go is Asian. As far as I know, Lars doesn’t cook Asian dishes; but I have no doubt that he and Nirin like them. A foodie is a foodie in any cuisine.

  Seattle is a great place for buying Asian ingredients. As Lars and Nirin are winging their way across the Atlantic, I shop in Asian markets and spend the day chopping. For our first dinner, I grill Vietnamese shrimp balls and chicken sate. I cook mu shu pork (I buy the pancakes), chicken and broccoli with hoisin sauce, beef with snow peas, eggplant with garlic sauce, and pork lo mein. Bron happens to stop by, and she joins us. When dinner is over, we sit outside and enjoy the lake and the moon.

  It must have been Jan who told Lars that I had a birthday coming up. He and Nirin decide to throw me a dinner party. The invited guests are Jan, Melissa, Mitch, John, Jip, Bron, Jan’s friend Craig, and Lars, Nirin, and I. My pots are OK for the cooking, but my Goodwill placemats do not satisfy Lars’s vision of elegance. So, while the gravlax is curing in the refrigerator, and I am vegetating in my hammock by the lake reading A Year in Provence, they raid Jan’s cabinets for tablecloths, linen napkins, crystal wineglasses, dishes, serving platters, and candleholders. And then they go off shopping in my car.