We met the first night on the ship, as she was to be one of our table partners for the trip. Table 19. I'd say the three of us hit it off pretty immediately, and we laughed and laughed at that dinner and many meals hence. I felt immediately like Pauline "got" me, and when she said "good on you" about something I had done, I felt enormously pleased. As the week went on, I was delighted by a couple of more "good on yous" from this extraordinary woman.
Pauline is Australian, in her late 60s (though I would have pegged her a good deal younger), and on her way to spend a few months in Nice painting. She has traveled, literally, all over the world. Antarctica is the only continent she has not visited, and that is still on her agenda. Before the week was out we heard of many of her amazing experiences, most notably those in India, which I believe really laid claim to her heart when she was there. She chose on that trip, as she has on many others, not to go first class or to claim the comfort of a Australian traveler with a bit of money, but to ride the trains with the poor and visit the places usually hidden from tourists.
Hers is not a political or do gooder agenda, though she has definite ideas about things and a fury against injustice, but it is more an insatiability about seeing and understanding the world and its people unadorned and not performing, "as they really are" is how she puts it. I have, quite simply, never met anyone with this kind of restless craving for life and more life. She has children and grandchildren, most of whom wish she would just stay home, but it is not in her to stay put, though she did stay in difficult circumstances for many years to raise her children. Now she is a wanderer, but clearly grounded in that identity; open and ready, not aimless nor, certainly, lost.
She has a full laugh and an exceptional graciousness. Her attentive kindness to those around her makes me feel downright selfish and oblivious. It has been inspiring to spend time with her on many levels, and I am sure meeting her was no accident.
Pauline is at work on a book about her experiences. I can't wait to read it. Makes my wish to write of my limited experiences feel very silly, but I hope that my small book will some day earn another "good on you" from this new, and dear, friend.
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Location:On the train to Oslo
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