A Time to Talk: Two books about two women caught my attention

Mary Magee

A Time to Talk

I just finished reading two intriguing books and found myself seeing connections between the two. I read the first one, “Tales of a Female Nomad,” by Rita Golden Gelman after I heard the author speak at the Nichols Community Center on Fox Island.

Rita has a warmth and humility that came through in the way she responded to the crowd — and in the tone of the passages she read from her memoir. She admits to living a privileged lifestyle in Los Angeles while she raised her family, but she says she grew restless.

Rita visited the Galapagos Islands with her husband and, upon her return, she studied anthropology. The realization that she wanted to travel and become more of a part of the cultures she was studying came as her children were leaving the nest and her marriage was ending.

In the preface, she writes, “I am a modern day nomad. I have no permanent address, no possessions except the ones I carry, and I rarely know where I’ll be six months from now. I move through the world without a plan, guided by instinct, connecting through trust, and constantly watching for serendipitous opportunities.”

As I read the book, I experienced, with delight, her philosophy of life and her approach to travel firsthand. She meets amazing people and immerses herself in each culture, whether it’s in Indonesia, New Zealand, Borneo, Israel or Nicaragua, to name a few.

Whatever challenges Rita encounters in her travels, she has a willingness to persevere, and to reach out. She works at honoring the people she meets by respecting their values and beliefs. She goes with the flow and blends into each culture, thus having a deeper experience of the place and its people.

The heroine in the novel I read is a different kind of seeker. “Sarah’s Key,” by Tatiana de Rosnay tells the story of Julia, an American woman who lives in Paris with her Parisian husband and their young daughter.

Julia is a journalist who’s given an assignment to research a dark period in French history. On July 15, 1942, the French authorities, at the command of the Nazis, rounded up hundreds of Jewish families, held them in a velodrome (the Velodrome d’Hiver in Paris) for several days, then shipped them to camps outside the city.

Eventually, they went to Auschwitz. That event is known as the Vel’ d’Hiv.

The more Julia learns, the more horrified she is about the atrocities that took place. She ends up focusing on the life of one child named Sarah, who was caught up in those sad events of 1942.

Julia takes risks and wakes up the people in her life as a result of her passion to delve into the past. In doing so, she unintentionally discovers a new future for herself.

Like Rita the nomad, Julia challenges conventional wisdom to get at a deeper truth; that a person’s efforts to connect with other human beings, past or present, can lead to unexpected gifts.

Tatiana de Rosnay, the author, is asked in an interview whether Julia is a portrayal of herself. She said that isn’t the case and added, “most of my readers are convinced I am Julia. ... I take it to be a magnificent compliment that I have created a character who could really exist and that women can identify with!”

Both of these women, Rita a real person and Julia a fictional character, are alike in their willingness to be daring, and to take actions that shake up the world a bit.

Whatever your dreams may be, Rita and Julia are role models worth admiring.

A Time to Talk columnist Mary Magee can be reached by e-mail at marymagee@harbornet.com.