I was seventeen when, after a visit to my father, who was then living in Hamburg, I spent a week traveling alone to some of the North Sea islands. I especially remember all the failures that I made along the way: on one island the youth hostel was already closed for the season when I arrived, on the other the ferry went only every other day. But it wasn’t the end of the world. Because there was no one who could blame me for this. I was alone and I knew how to help myself.
I bought a fish sandwich from the counter and asked where to stay. In fact, the saleswoman’s neighbor sometimes rented out a guest room to her. While waiting for her to close the stall and take me to the lady, I heard all sorts of gossip and soon felt like a local. The next morning, the hostess served me soft-boiled eggs for breakfast under warm horns, which I crocheted. She asked me endless questions, apparently to find out if I had run away from home. At the time, a girl traveling alone wasn’t considered normal—and apparently still isn’t. And yet I have always loved him. In various periods of life, regardless of my civil and emotional state.
Traveling alone helps me find myself again when I have temporarily lost myself. It teaches me that misfortunes like missing a train, losing a passport, having stolen cash are tiring but always lead to new adventures and encounters. Most importantly, traveling alone helps me understand what I can do (more than I think) and what I want (not necessarily what I think).
When I am on a walk with someone else, be it a girlfriend, a husband or a child, the first question for me is always what the other person needs and whether he is satisfied. It’s definitely not just me. And, in fact, the community is something valuable, and attention to it is necessary. But both sometimes drive me to the point where I can no longer hear my thoughts. At this point, I don’t know if I’m really hungry or if I’m just going to eat, because that’s how it was designed.
And so the other day, in the middle of a busy and stressful week, I suddenly found myself alone in a seafood restaurant on the coast of Northern California. It was still light outside, I actually wanted to take a walk, but suddenly I got hungry. And so I entered without thinking, without asking. I had a nice table overlooking the ocean, where the setting fireball had just been swallowed up by the rising mist. I ordered two appetizers and both were brought to me at the same time. I did not take out a book or a mobile phone from my pocket. Instead, I let the pleasant couple at the next table engage me in a conversation that consisted mostly of questions. Maybe they wanted to know if I ran away from home.
Then I looked out the window again, where the last flaming red shrouds were spreading over the ocean. A happy woman is reflected in the window. I roasted her.