{"product_id":"tales-of-a-female-nomad-isbn-9780609809549","title":"Tales of a Female Nomad","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe true story of an ordinary woman living an extraordinary existence all over the world.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Gelman doesn’t just observe the cultures she visits, she participates in them, becoming emotionally involved in the people’s lives. This is an amazing travelogue.” —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the age of forty-eight, on the verge of  a divorce, Rita Golden Gelman left an elegant life in L.A. to follow her dream of travelling the world, connecting with  people in cultures all over the globe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1986, Rita sold her possessions and became  a nomad, living in a Zapotec village in Mexico, sleeping with sea lions on the Galapagos  Islands, and residing everywhere from thatched huts to regal palaces. She has observed  orangutans in the rain forest of Borneo, visited trance healers and dens of black  magic, and cooked with women on fires all over the world. Rita’s example encourages  us all to dust off our dreams and rediscover the joy, the exuberance, and the hidden  spirit that so many of us bury when we become adults.“Whenever I open an atlas . . . part of me wants to pack up and hit the road for  a year or two. But I doubt I’ll ever do it, because I’m too practical. Rita Golden  Gelman . . . didn’t let practicalities stop her.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLos Angeles Times \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eTales of  a Female Nomad\u003c\/i\u003e follows Gelman from fragility to self-confidence as she traverses  the globe.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “An exuberant homage to wanderlust.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"This is a courageous, gentle, fascinating book, but be forewarned it's no idle armchair read. Like all of the best travel writing, Rita Golden Gelman's wanderings are likely to provoke powerful self-examination, which could easily catalyze your own wanderlust and curiosity.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e—Alexander F. Lobrano, European correspondent, Gourmet, and author of \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrommer's Irreverent Guide to Paris\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Rita Gelman takes us on a journey filled with cultural interactions and human observations. An inspirational story, particularly for anyone considering a major lifestyle change.\" \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e-- Melinda Blanchard, co-author of \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Trip to the Beach\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eRita Golden Gelman\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of more than seventy children's books, including  \u003ci\u003eInside Nicaragua\u003c\/i\u003e, which was one of the ALA's Best Young Adult Books of 1988, and  \u003ci\u003eMore Spaghetti, I Say!\u003c\/i\u003e, a staple in every first grade classroom. As a nomad, Rita  has no permanent address. Her most recent encampments have been in Mexico and New  York City.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Beginning\u003cbr\u003e 1985.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I am living someone else's life. It's a good life,   filled with elegant restaurants, interesting people, and events like the Academy   Awards and the Grammies. My husband of twenty-four years and I dine with celebrities,   we see the latest movies before the rest of the world, and we're invited to all the   book parties in Los Angeles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Because of his job as an editorial consultant to some   top magazines, we've been able to create a life that is privileged and glamorous.   But now that I'm there, I realize that I don't like feeling privileged and I'm uncomfortable   with glamour. I am living in a designer world that has been designed for someone   I no longer am.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I prefer Goodwill to Neiman Marcus, Hondas to Mercedes, and soup   kitchens to charity banquets. My house is too big; my garden, too trim; my friends,   too white and American.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I first realized something was missing about five years   ago when a woman wearing a floor-length muumuu and sandals sat next to me on an airplane.   She told me she was in the business of booking sailing tours for captains around   the world and was returning from the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and the Gulf of   Mexico. As she was telling me about her trip, tears began streaming down my cheeks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I'm sorry,\" I said, embarrassed. \"I don't know where that came from.\" I wiped my   eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But I did know. I was crying for my lost spirit. As the woman spoke, I remembered   that once I'd dreamed of sailing around the world, of paddling down the Amazon, of   sitting around a fire with tribal people and sharing their food and their lives.   I had loved the person who had those dreams. She was daring and idealistic . . .   and gone. My husband had no interest in boats or tribal cultures.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"If I were to   take a sailing trip,\" I said to the woman, \"there are three things that I would want:   a salty old captain who has tales to tell and philosophy to spout, a crew that likes   to sing, and a place that is rich in experiences. I hate lying around on beaches.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She didn't even have to think. \"Go sail on the Tigris in the Galapagos Islands.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Three months later, I boarded the Tigris without my husband, toured the spectacular   volcanic islands, interacted with sea lions and blue-footed boobies, snorkeled the   tropical waters, and touched the magic of otherness. I was never the same again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When I returned from the Galapagos, that long-dormant fire of adventure had been   rekindled and the glamour of my life turned gray. The gourmet dinners, the exclusive   press screenings, the concerts, the parties, and the evenings at the theater suddenly   felt like empty substitutes for discovery, for learning, for penetrating the unknown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I knew that I couldn't run around the world adventuring, not if I wanted to stay   married, which I did. But after the Galapagos trip, I needed something more in my   life. I came up with a compromise. I would go to graduate school in anthropology   and get my adventure from books.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The timing was right. My two kids no longer needed   a full-time mom. Mitch was in his freshman year at Berkeley, and Jan was about to   graduate from high school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I had a fairly successful career as a writer of children's   books. I enjoyed the wild and imaginative leaps into fantasy and the visits to schools   and the modest recognition, mostly among first- and second-grade teachers; but I   happily put my work on hold and plunged into academics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I spent the next four years   at UCLA, reading ethnographies, studying with anthropologists who had lived in exotic   cultures, watching films, listening to lectures. By 1985, I am finished with most   of the course work for the Ph.D., and I'm ready to choose a place and a topic for   my dissertation research. Although my husband puts up with the hours I have to study,   I doubt he would join me or endorse the idea of my doing fieldwork for a year in   some far corner of the developing world. So I plan to do my thesis among the urban   tribes of Los Angeles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Meanwhile, our marriage is floundering. Over the years, our   divergent interests and our personality differences have pushed us deeper into opposite   corners. I'm basically laid back and sometimes careless. I tend to excuse my own   mistakes as well as other people's; and from time to time I find it necessary to   adjust my ethics to the situation at hand. He is a perfectionist, reliable, honest,   and prompt. He sets high standards for himself and has high expectations of others.   More and more we find ourselves in minor skirmishes. The bell keeps ringing and we   come out bickering.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Finally, after yet another squabble that escalates, I suggest   that we take a break from each other for a couple of weeks. I need time alone, I   tell him, to figure out what's wrong with the marriage and how we can fix it. When   I come back, I say, I'd like us to try some marriage counseling. He agrees to a break   and counseling but adds that two weeks is not enough. He suggests two months in which   we are both free to see other people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His response surprises and frightens me. Eight   weeks of independence is very different from a two-week break to clear our heads.   And I hadn't even thought about dating. I'm not sure I can be with another man after   twenty-four years of marriage; I don't really want to. But I accept his suggestion.   When he leaves the room, the tears roll down my cheeks. As in so many of our conversations   these days, we are talking different languages, and I realize that once I introduced   the idea of a break, I could not control his reaction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If the break had been for   two weeks, I probably would have checked into a hotel near Los Angeles. But two months   is too long for a hotel. I decide to go to Mexico. It's a place I've always wanted   to go and my husband hasn't.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By the time I leave, we both fear that this is more   than \"a break.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I walk weak-kneed down the steps of the plane into hot Mexico City.   My eyes are red, my nose is stuffed, and I feel as though my head is filled with   lead weights. I am more frightened than I have ever been. I've initiated something   that has already taken off in a direction I never intended.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I slip my arms into   my backpack and follow the signs out of the terminal. In spite of my heavy head,   I warm to the musical sound of Spanish all around me. I've loved the language from   the first day I entered Mrs. James's Spanish 1, as a sophomore in Bassick High School   in Bridgeport, Connecticut.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When I step outside, I am greeted by five young men   waving brochures. The hotel I decide on looks decent, the price is right, and I don't   have to pay for a cab. I'll only be there for two nights anyway. In two days I begin   a Spanish language course in Cuernavaca; the school has arranged for me to stay with   a family. It's the only plan I've made for the two months.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It is seven-thirty at   night when I check into the hotel, which gives me plenty of time to clean up and   find a restaurant for dinner. As I salivate for Mexican food, I realize that I have   never, in my forty-seven years, had dinner alone in a restaurant. When I was young,   I had plenty of friends to share meals with. I married at twenty-three, and then   I had a husband. I have never eaten out by myself . . . and I don't feel like beginning   tonight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I use the phone in my room to call for room service.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Discoelpeme, Señora.   No hay comida en el hotel.\" My high school Spanish registers the words. There's no   food in the hotel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When I think about going out, an advance video runs through my   head: I am sitting at a table trying to look content. The restaurant is filled with   smiling, chatting people. I am the only one alone. They are staring, pitying me,   wondering where I'm from and why I have no companion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I sit on the bed and think   about having to choose a place, get there, eat the meal while pretending to be happy,   and then return to the hotel. How do I pick a place? Do I take a cab or walk? Is   the neighborhood safe?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I can't do it. I'd rather not eat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So I shower, put on my   nightshirt, and curl up with the guidebook. Tomorrow I will go to the market. I plot   the route to the central market on buses, and then I turn out the light, hungry and   disoriented, as though I am not connected to the body lying in the bed. Who is this   person in this strange hotel, alone for the first time in her life? Why am I here?   What have I done? I feel as though I'm in a play, following a script that was written   by a stranger. Part of me is scared; but there is another part, deep inside, that   is excited at the idea that I am about to enter the unknown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As a child, I loved   the unknown. Every summer my parents, my brother, Pepper the dog, and I went on a   one-week vacation in the car. My father would drive and my mother would sit next   to him, a map on her lap. Every once in a while, when my mother said, \"Turn right,\"   my father would get a funny look on his face and turn left. Within minutes we would   be lost. Then we'd have to knock on a farmhouse door (when it happened, we were always   in farm country) to ask directions. Sometimes we'd be invited to see the newborn   calves. Or watch the cows being milked. Often we'd get to throw a handful of grain   to the chickens. Lost meant adventure, and I loved it. It's been years since I've   been lost, and I can't remember the last time I stepped into the unknown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I am out   on the street at six-thirty in the morning. The day is sunny, the Spanish language   sings its musical sounds all around me, and cars whiz through the city ahead of the   morning rush hour. Early mornings have a special energy that I like. I decide to   walk the couple of miles to the market and get something to eat on the way.","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301091791077,"sku":"NP9780609809549","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780609809549.jpg?v=1767737748","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/tales-of-a-female-nomad-isbn-9780609809549","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}