I turned the last page of Kimberly Gomes' novel, A Road of Her Own, with my pruned fingertips and read the final sentences. I found a relatively dry spot to set the book down, though the book itself was a tad soggy from hours of reading with damp hands, and looked up at my surroundings. I was soaking in a bathtub full of water heated deep within the earth at my favorite place on the planet, a hot spring perched on a cliff at the edge of the continent.
I was peacefully staring off into the vast Pacific when I noticed an older lady snapping photos. It is a clothing optional, mostly nude, space and there are several prominent signs prohibiting photography or electronics at the baths to respect people’s privacy. Scandalized by her audacity, my jaw dropped, and I looked around to see how other people were reacting. It was then that I noticed we were the only ones there.
“Well fuck it,” I thought, “If she’s gonna take pics, I’m gonna do the same.” With the tacit permission of this stranger lady, I hurried to get my phone before anyone else arrived. I asked her to take a photo of me perched on the edge of my tub, smiling widely, to commemorate the best I’ve felt in months, relaxed and expansive from a weekend of doing nothing but soaking and reading a novel in the warm October sun surrounded by wide open vistas. I often wonder if I love floating in hot spring water so much because it reminds me of being a fetus, suspended in warm amniotic fluid, not yet exposed to the harsh and chaotic din of the outside world. After several hours suspended in mother earth’s gloriously stinky, sulphur-rich womb, I felt fresh as a newborn baby.
“Sorry, I know I’m not supposed to take photos but you seemed engrossed in your book and it’s just SO BEAUTIFUL,” she said. “It was a bold choice,” I replied, “but sometimes being bold inspires others to do the same.”
I was standing there, wet and naked, talking to the lady about taking pictures with her cell phone but, inspired by the book I had just finished, was thinking more broadly about how making the courageous decision to live authentically, fulfill our own desires, and take leaps of faith inspires other people to do the same.
Kimberly’s book, A Road of Her Own, is about finding one's own path to creative expression and living an authentic life by traveling on the open road. The main character, a photographer named Mira, walks out on her shitty 9-5 to drive her free-spirited mother’s old VW bus through the American southwest. Through spending time in nature, connecting with strangers, and expressing herself creatively, Mira begins to process childhood sexual abuse, develops clarity of purpose, and becomes the main character of her own adventurous story. In the end Mira, previously stuck in the slog of her daily routine, can see a path forward toward a life she genuinely wants to inhabit.
As an evangelist of using travel and leisure for self discovery and personal evolution, the book was clearly right up my alley. However, just as powerful as the novel itself were the acknowledgements. Kimberly wrote, “I wrote this book over the course of a decade and the process of doing so changed my entire life and shaped the woman I’ve become.” Undoubtedly this book was a journey unto itself and the result of many brave and bold decisions. Kim’s courage stirred something in me.
I’ve been recently wondering if I want to continue to keep my commitment to myself to write this newsletter once a month. While I am sincerely grateful for heartfelt feedback from a handful of folks (my sweet aunt never fails to respond to my monthly missives) it can sometimes feel like I’m shouting into the void. But reading that Kimberly stayed committed to her book for 10 long years and contributed to her personal evolution normalized and validated my experience and gave me permission to keep going. Creatives of all kinds create alone in their rooms or in front of teeny tiny crowds. While our attention economy renders this hard to recall, an audience isn’t necessarily the point of creative expression. Sometimes the most valuable gift is not applause or audience but the becoming of who we are meant to be.
My own creative impulses were stymied for a very long time by self doubt, a feeling that I don’t have anything unique or worthwhile to share with the world. Thank god for the self-identified president of the Lisa fan club, my friend Kelly, who patiently poked holes in all of my excuses to not begin this project. It was early pandemic and we donned masks while hiking in the Santa Cruz mountain sandhills as I shared my concern about whether anyone would benefit from me, an average person, sharing average things, in an average way. Kelly assured me that someone somewhere would resonate with something I have to say, even if it was just one person. I’ve now been writing this newsletter for almost 5 years and I am astonished by how much I’ve changed and what now feels possible.
Thanks to the support and guidance of mother nature and Kimberly’s book, I came away from the weekend with a renewed sense of purpose and resolution to take myself more seriously as an artist and a writer. I’ll continue to write these monthly newsletters and share my photography. Though I’m unsure about where this road will lead me, I know I will continue to meet myself anew, evolving along the way. I am forever grateful for Kelly, Kimberly, and all of the women in my life who have given me permission, explicitly or otherwise, for creative self expression. Though I won’t share the photo of me naked on the edge of the tub, the sparkling Pacific behind me, I will keep it as a gift from that stranger who gave me permission to live a little dangerously and break a rule. May all of the ways that I choose to live out loud give you permission to do the same.
Whose permission are you waiting for, and who might be waiting for yours?