This month I’ve struggled to unfasten myself from Cheryl Strayed’s gripping memoir, ‘Wild’. It tells the tale of her 1,100 mile hike across America’s Pacific Crest Trail in the 1990’s, as a woman in her late ’20’s.

Cheryl undertook this mammoth feat at a time in her personal life in which she was struggling, having recently lost her mother and divorced from a man she still cared about a huge amount but just couldn’t see a future with. For her, the Trail was an opportunity for self-discovery, and a way to prove to herself that she not only can, but does. I’m only halfway through the book but already understand why it was a #1 Best Seller in the New York Times, and material for a blockbuster movie starring Reese Witherspoon.

It seems quite fitting to be reading this book in the same week as International Women’s Day, a time to revere in all things womanhood, and celebrate those wonderful females both past and present who have ever taken a risk that paved the way for the rest of us to do the same. Women who have ever diverged from the beaten track of societal norms. Women who didn’t – or don’t – allow their gender to determine what they can or can’t do. Strong, loving and caring women who hold their own and have a positive impact on those around them, in whatever way that may be.

I have met many inspiring women over the years, for a multitude of different reasons, and I appreciate their influence every day, but recently – and no doubt inspired by my choice of literature at the moment – I have particularly been thinking about female explorers, a bit like Cheryl Strayed (who I obviously haven’t met, but would love to one day). Women who set out on their own to explore the world around them, even if their bags were painfully heavy (like Cheryl’s), even if their shoes were worn, and even if – by the very nature of being a lone woman in a foreign place – they were at a heightened risk of nasty things happening to them along the way.

There have been a number of inspiring female explorers throughout history. Amelia Earhart or the aptly named Isabella Bird may be among the first that spring to mind, and whilst their influence cannot be downplayed, I often think that among the most inspiring are those who we come across in our day to day. The hidden heroines who come in and out of our lives leaving longer term lessons behind.

I thought back to a trip to Canada I had made in the Summer of 2006, a few months before my 21st birthday. It was my first time traveling without anyone I knew and as such, I had approached it with a bit of trepidation and unease. Overall, I managed fine, but do remember being a little upset one day whilst we were staying in a beautiful riverside hostel at Fort Coulonge – some nonsense to do with a phone and worrying about some administrative issues back home regarding University accommodation for the following term. I remember sitting on the thin, lumpy mattress of a bunk-bed that looked like it could snap should somebody set down their rucksack onto it too swiftly, and crying. An Australian nurse in her late ’30s named Jo – who was on the same trip – saw I was upset, sat down next to me and took my hand whilst listening to me talk through what was – in hindsight – a bit of a non-problem in the grand scheme of things, involving lots of mundane detail. She listened patiently, offering support and assurance throughout, before suddenly adopting a more stern demeanour and heading out the door to join the rest of the group:

“Now, get ya shit together!! You won’t get this moment again.“

And maybe, initially, I was quite taken aback by this sudden change of tone and (also a little embarrassed for having blubbered away at somebody I’d only known for two days). But, within minutes I found myself away from the bunk and plunging into the Ottawa River with my fellow travellers, trying to get back into the moment as we all played a game. I remember feeling rejuvenated by Jo’s laid-back attitude, and perspective on what really mattered and what didn’t. What she had said had worked, and transformed the course of my afternoon, shifting my focus back to where it needed to be. It’s worth noting here that those administrative concerns I’d been so worried about were resolved within a few frantic but otherwise non-descript days of phone-calls when back home a few weeks later, to the point where I can’t even remember what the exact problem was, and certainly don’t hold it to the same historic merit that I do the Canada trip. Yet at the time, it had felt massive. Jo’s perspective had been correct.

On the same trip was Dorothea, a lady from the Black Forest – who was again in her late ’30’s – and would sit on the minibus with her earphones in and just do her own thing, laughing at her own jokes – most of which the rest of us didn’t understand – splitting away from the group during most stops, but engaging with us when it mattered, and fundamentally always smiling and being kind. A really calming presence. Hana was a flame-haired lady in her 60’s – also from Germany – who was on the trip having recently become widowed, and wanting to do something a bit special to try and make the best out of a chapter that could easily have been overwhelmed by grief. She was the oldest person on the trip by at least twenty five years but you wouldn’t have been able to tell from the way in which she joined in with everything, especially the wild water rafting! I remember her welcoming smile and state of chill, and also her maternal instincts, which included paying attention to my nutritional needs:

“EatzummorepotatoZophie!” she had once interrupted a story she was telling to snap at me when she noticed I’d finished my lunch, thrusting a foil container of cheesy diced potatoes into my immediate sphere and simultaneously ensuring I fulfilled my potassium quota for the day. It’s funny how some sentences stay etched in your mind for years to come; that one certainly did in mine. I hear it every time I eat potato, and since it’s now been almost eighteen years, I guess I probably always will.

BusDriverJen, a Canadian native from Ontario, had driven us around for much of the trip as our tour-guide, and she too was an energising character. She was so passionate about her work and for us to feel the same levels of enthusiasm for Canada and for its native music – such as Stompin’ Tom Connors‘ ‘Hockey Song’ – that she did. In reality, the most any of us wanted to do with Stompin’ Tom Connors’ after hearing the song for the ten-thousandth time within a day was to throw the CD right out of the window and firmly into the trunk of any single one of the pines we passed on our route so that it would smash into smithereens. Despite this, the enthusiasm had been infectious and inspiring. The Hockey Song is saved onto one of my Spotify playlists and appears every now and then whilst on shuffle mode. I no longer want to fervently chuck it at a tree, even if such a thing were possible. Instead I think about that trip, the long bus journeys, BusDriverJen warbling out, ‘the good ol’ hockey gaaaaaame’ at the wheel in a valiant effort to encourage the rest of us to join in; some apprehensively attempting, and the likes of Dorothea adjusting their headphones and pretending to be fixated by something out of the window so as to avoid having to do so.

Meeting all of these interesting women within the space of a couple of weeks had been an incredibly powerful and marked experience. The volume of independent, explorative women I met on the trip had outnumbered that of men, and that’s not meant as a slight on males, each of the ones I met on the trip had been lovely too. It’s more an acknowledgement of having come across the unexpected, and taking inspiration from it at an impressionable age. Until that point I had only ever heard or read about solo female travellers – never met one myself – yet here they were, dancing to their own headphones in the minibus, calmly responding to intrusive questions about where their husbands were, and defying well-intended yet slightly patronising suggestions on where they should and shouldn’t be going if traveling alone. I remember considering these women in a similar way that you may consider a particularly inspiring teacher in school, when you quietly hope that you might turn out to be a bit like them by the time you reach their age.

At the end of the trip we all went our separate ways. Social media was still to become a real thing back then so instead we’d all exchanged e-mail addresses and vowed to keep in touch that way. Within a few months the e-mails had tapered off and these people I’d come to know so well within those two weeks had faded back into being strangers again, the same ones who’d first stepped onto the minibus and introduced themselves all those months before. In the years that have passed I can’t claim to have thought about them overly often. Life is ever moving and it’s been a very long time. Yet, almost twenty years later, as I sit and really think about it, I see the impact that meeting them had had on me, a planted seed, how in their own ways they had altered what I had thought womanhood was all about back then, that it wasn’t just about x, y and z but about all the other letters of the alphabet too, including solo explorations in a world that had convinced us that as women, we shouldn’t.

That womanhood could be – and is – about absolutely anything you want it to be.

Happy International Women’s Day (for two days ago) to all the inspiring women out there. Keep doing what you do and being true to what you believe in.

Song of the Day: Chantal Kreviazuk – Before You

This seems a pretty appropriate one for the post. This had been another song on BusDriverJen’s CD of Canadian music, but this tune I didn’t mind hearing umpteen times a day. Beautiful song.