San Sebastian, Spain
This is an ideal seaside town: wide bike lanes, clean beaches with surf to play in, charming old quarter with restaurants every few storefronts.
After a morning bicycle and a quick trip to the beach (water was too chilly to do more than wade; I couldn’t help but shriek when it got past my knees), I searched out a shop that sold fresh-squeezed orange juice. I’m not a juice person at home, but the oranges here are addictively sweet.
The shop was staffed by a girl in her 20s, who turned out to be the owner. I was her only customer. On a bulletin board next to the cash register were tacked postcards from various spots around the world: Paris, New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Bangkok, Istanbul.
I asked her about them.
“They are all the places I want to go but will never be able to,” she said. “My friends send them to me.”
I’m embarrassed to say, I gave her what I think of as the “American pep talk”—of course you can, just save a little every month, shop for discount train tickets/airfare, blah blah blah.
She listened politely, then said, “That may be possible for other people, but not for me.”
Turns out she is severely agoraphobic. Her days consist of going between her shop and her apartment upstairs, which are connected by a rear stairway. She has the oranges for her juice-making (and everything else she needs for her life) either delivered or picked up by friends. On her day off, she surfs the web, looking at photos and reading about places she would like to visit. She said she’s had counseling for years, but none of it has taken.
“All of us are broken in some way,” she said. “The point is to live the best you can anyhow.”
At this point, I’m speechless and teary-eyed and feeling ridiculously lucky. Not only have I had the privilege of visiting all the places she has postcards from, I’ve been to them in the past eighteen months.
Another customer came in to the shop. I grabbed a handful of euro notes from my wallet and dropped them on the counter.
“This is too much!” the girl protested.
I waved her off and stumbled out onto the sidewalk, thinking even this small journey was one she couldn’t bring herself to take.
Much goes into the ability to travel. Many if not most in the world don’t have such freedom. A politically stable country (whose passports are accepted in other places), plus a measure of money, health, and emotional wherewithal are all requirements to wander the world.
I will be thinking of the girl in the juice shop and her postcards the next time I’m inconvenienced by a haywire GPS, delayed flight, or disappeared hotel reservation.
What a privilege it is to be a traveler.
