Stepping through... Leaving Home to study in Spain - 1996

“You are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be. Know that the most difficult part of any endeavor

is taking the first step, making the first decision.”

Robyn Davidson

The first time I went to Spain was as a mature age student on an open-ended sabbatical to study Spanish at the University of Salamanca in 1996. I resigned from my job, sold my car, put everything into storage, and bought a one-way ticket in search of something more. This is the story of that departure. As Qantas Flight QF81 climbed to 35,000 feet, bound for Singapore, I reclined my seat, threw back a scotch and coke, exhaled slowly, and looked down at the card in my hand, bearing a quotation by Guillaume Apollinaire, handwritten by mum.

“Come to the edge,” he said.

They came,

He pushed them,

and they flew.”

“And so, with you Jules” she added before signing off with hugs and kisses. I felt strangely calm, but my heart ached, and the billowing clouds below became blurred from my tears. This was it. I was leaving home alone on a one-way ticket.

Travelling Solo, (nicknamed TS for short), had taken on a lifelike character of her own over the past year and had urged me to take the plunge and face my fears. Leaving home alone on a one-way ticket was not something I had ever done for an extended period of time. Even for single people with few ties, it can be strangely unfamiliar behavior. For me, T.S. conjured up a deep sense of excitement that played hide-and-seek with my doubts, fears, and anxiety and questioned my ability to handle the stuff life would throw at me. Yet, contrary to the fears that flurried in my heart, I still believe there is far more to be gained by leaving than by staying. Leaving home has taken me into dimensions of myself I never knew existed; staying offers more of the familiar. I still strive to find the balance, somewhere in between.

Ask anyone who has taken the risk of travelling solo and the answer is usually the same: that the decision to go is often harder than the act itself. And that decision goes well beyond mere financing of the journey. There are fears about the loss of career opportunities while away. We wonder how it might look on the CV to say, “I took a sabbatical”. How do we manage the kids, and look after the house, the garden, and the dog?

However, tales of my trips were often met with envious eyes and longing voices from peers who had not been able to make that first tough decision. Being single had made my life easier to manage, yet it had brought its own challenges of vulnerability, loneliness, and questions of safety where every decision was mine alone. Amidst the pros and cons are innumerable reasons and excuses why we chose not to make our escape dream a reality. I have always been more afraid of not realizing mine. My stomach tenses with stress at the thought of regretting what might have been, and some early grey hairs show testament to my panic.

On board my flight, the movie screens came to life, but I turned toward the window. I had left Australia many times before on short adventures, but this time I had bought a one-way ticket. I wanted some time out to shake off the shackles of my well-orchestrated life. Over ten years of career aspirations had molded me into a somewhat corporate, disciplined, task-oriented individual, characteristics which had overflowed into my personal life. I didn’t like it. I would need at least 10 months off, one for every year of my working life. I wanted to become spontaneous again, to be bilingual, to write, to experience a different culture, live simply, find romance, meet interesting people, and throw open the door of opportunity.

However, such a dream needed courage. As a single woman, loneliness, safety, and financial security were my main concerns. My bank owned my two properties and demanded I pay my mortgages while away. I resigned from my job, rented out my home, stored my furniture, sold my car and computer, bought a laptop and portable printer, and packed my Monsack trolley bag. I undertook a basic course in Spanish and took lots of deep breaths.

The thought of escaping to Spain had been born while lying alone in my hospital bed during my convalescence the year before. It had come while wondering what I would regret should I not survive or ever regain my full sight. My ‘SSST’ (Senior Sagittal Sinus Thrombosis, or large blood clot in the head) had resulted from dehydration while on a high-altitude trek in Argentina. The clot had caused a build-up of pressure in my head, causing my vision to split into two and my brain to throb with constant migraines that refused to quit. Put a “P” in front of my ‘SSST’ and you can begin to appreciate how I felt. Lying around incapacitated wasn’t something I took well. As I watched my world in duplicate bustle around me from my bed and felt the throbbing of another migraine begin to split the base of my skull, I let my mind drift away. So, I thought of the things I would miss and regret not having done or the chance to feel again should I not recover. I thought of sunshine, and I thought of music and dancing and passion, the things in life that fill my spirit. I thought of Spain.

I am romantic and can be quite naive at times. I have no Spanish ancestry. I had only my fantasies from movies, books, and songs of olive-skinned, passionate men with black, beckoning, come-hither bedroom eyes and buxom, long, dark haired beautiful Spanish women. I knew of paella and flamenco and arid coastlines with emerald water. I knew of Majorca and Barcelona and Madrid and guitars and siestas. From Hemingway, I knew of Pamplona and bulls and fly fishing in the Pyrenees. I knew the Spanish love of wine and dancing and all-night fiestas and Spanish passion that can so easily turn to aggression. I knew that the Spanish language moved my heart and that was enough. Somewhere inside, I knew that was where I wanted to go, but not as a backpacker this time.

I decided to fly to Spain alone, with no particular plans except to study Spanish for the summer and simply live and write and then do what?

“That’s the exciting part,” T.S. whispered. “For once in your life, have the courage to live without being in control of every waking moment."

One year later, here I was.

Glancing back to my card, I felt Mum’s presence. It was from mum that I inherited my determination and ‘can do’ attitude. Mum is a woman who has lived her life to the full. Her belief in me gave me the strength and confidence to follow my heart. Dad’s gentle nature reminded me to be kind. A special lunch during my farewell week allowed us all to share our hopes for my trip. “You must visit Aranjuez in the stillness of a hot afternoon while listening to ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’ Dad wrote in my farewell card.

Well into my second drink, I thought of my friends. We were a ‘30 something’ bunch of singles, exes, and potential partners, a lovable mixed group of adventurous individuals. Married couples were few but dear. Over the years we had shared overseas adventures to Nepal, India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Africa, and South America. Together we skippered 40-foot yachts in the Mediterranean and hiked the Inca trail in Peru. With some I had climbed 6,000-meter peaks, backpacked Europe, explored Australia, snow skied in Austria, trucked across the Serengeti, and scuba-dived in Fiji. We were young and carefree and had lived and partied together. I loved them dearly; however, time was moving on and we each knew that those white knights and flaxen-haired maidens may not, for whatever reason, materialize in our lives.

I locked the memory of my family and friends quietly away in my mind and whispered goodbye.

After seven hours of flying, I changed planes in Singapore and waited four hours to catch Qantas QF9 to London. The plane was packed, and anticipation grew as I wondered who would be sitting next to me for the next 13 hours. As I bumped and eased my way down the crowded aisle to seat 47K, I realised I had drawn the unfortunate middle seat. There would be no escape, to turn unsociably towards the window nor to stretch out into the aisle.

I spotted him before he spotted me. In 47J, a tall, 30-something, brown-haired man with a pleasant face traveling alone in the aisle seat. Next to the window was an elderly gray-haired Englishman. His eyes were already closed his blow-up pillow securely placed around his neck for comfort. Peter, with a pleasant face, turned out to be a geophysicist who had been working for Santos in Australia. Heavily into the oil industry, Peter had traveled extensively with his work and was returning to his home in England.

As we made polite conversation and I settled into my seat, I realised that trying to stay awake was a hopeless task. My body clock told me it was 2:00 a.m. As QF9 took off into the night sky, I fell into a deep uninterrupted coma. I cared neither if my head fell carelessly against either of the two nor if my subdued snores would raise their eyebrows. I awoke eight hours later to the second breakfast sitting of omelet and tomatoes. Peter was smiling at me. “You don’t have any trouble sleeping on planes, do you?” he grinned.

“I didn’t snore, did I?” I asked.

“No not at all” he replied honestly, but his look left me wondering.

The flight from Singapore to London’s Heathrow still had four hours to go. Once clean and comfortable, I settled into the in-flight movie. Touchdown, 5.28 a.m. London time. Immigration and customs were a breeze and as I walked toward the exit, Peter handed me his card. “If you ever get into trouble in Spain and need a hand, call me,” he said. “I have lots of friends in Madrid who may be able to help you.” I pocketed his card with a warm heart, touched by his generosity. I had forgotten the concern and care that travellers often share on the road. Far back in my memory, I remembered such kindness also occurring in other countries, but that seemed a lifetime ago. Too many months of blahing on the phone and blinking into a computer screen had dulled their memory. What else had I forgotten?

As I entered Heathrow’s underground walkway, dragging my luggage, the drop in temperature suddenly hit me. Ahead, another traveler had stopped to add a few more layers of clothing. We commented on the chill in the air and fell into conversation. He was also from Australia, a filmmaker going on to Rome that afternoon to work on a new movie. Then, saluting farewell, he called me ‘mate’, and any loneliness I may have felt dissolved in the warmth of that word.

Pulling my luggage behind me, my computer bag in hand, I negotiated the tunnels and stairs and hauled myself onto the empty train to Kings Cross. There I hoped to catch the 8.00 a.m. Inter-city train to Edinburgh for a one-week break before my flight to Madrid. Over the next 40 minutes, as we raced towards the metropolis of London, the train slowly filled with sleepy depressed workers with severe Monday morning blues. Rugged up against the five-degree chill of morning, they sat or stood, eyes closed or reading papers in their dark gray overcoats and scarves, tired, sad Londoners facing another working week. I, on the other hand, was wide awake, peering eagerly through the foggy windows to the suburbs beyond, eagerly anticipating what the day would bring.