Let’s say you’re an American woman in her sixties, living a comfortable ex-pat life in Provence, single but happily conjoined (as the French put it), sharing a satisfying albeit penurious life of art and adventure with a handsome younger man. What would make you take to the road in an eight-year old Renault Kangoo (a high-topped vehicle that might deliver your pizza) and wind your way around France, camping on grassy spots alongside the Loire?
It’s a little like Outward Bound for the mature writer. Not Jack Kerouac, more like Thoreau and his Walden Pond, or Robert Louis Stevenson and his donkey—just as silly and almost as capable a load-bearer as my Kangoo.
Sometimes life gets to be too complicated for you to keep your place in your own personal story. In that case, there’s nothing like paring everything down to just you and the great outdoors to bring you back to what counts: finding food and water, a safe, dry place to spend the night, time for reflection, a glimpse of beauty and satisfaction in mastering basic survival skills.
After all, you’ve never been the age you are today. You have to take stock periodically. In my fifties, I found my motto in a sports tagline:
Now there is one less thing I cannot do.
This decade of my life requires a new one:
Now there is one more thing I still can do.