Let's all take someone somewhere this year!
I know I'm being provocative here… but the impulse to help random strangers doesn't strike me as all that French. I'm not sure it's all that English either. Yesterday our new baker jokingly held out his hand for a box of eggs I was carrying and was completely wrong-footed when I actually gave it to him. 'It was a joke, a joke!' He insisted, asking what he could give in return or how much for the eggs. They were spare… that was the whole point. It was sad to see how hard he fought the gift! In the end he won: gave me two DELICIOUS patisserie. (Note to all within reach of Grolejac, the Easter-themed patisserie are wonderful.) But it was sad. People are so funny about getting things. They think that something is expected. In many ways blind, random giving is the most fun because there's so little baggage to the gift. Joad recently gave me a fantastic travelling bag. Perfect hand luggage, with the emphasis on the luggage. Something that you could take on a cheap flight but actually fill with clothes at the same time. Something with inner zips and expandable sections. Joy. But I felt bad taking it from her. Why? Still, I took it, and am making good use of it, and each time I make good use of it, and appreciate it, I feel a bit better about having taken it.
Asking for help isn't easy, and it seems that over the years hitching has become somewhat embarrassing. My mum couldn’t drive. It didn't stop her from staying in a very remote cottage every summer. Now every mum can drive, unless she lives in a massive city. The car has become a measure of success so low on the scale that not having one is, sadly, a mark of dysfuntionality. My niece, a hospital doctor with a strong sense of social and ecological justice will only cycle and travel by train. When she does go in a car, it's because that car is going there anyway. She won't fly, but she does hitch. But now that hitching isn't such a usual thing to do, you can generally count on getting an interesting ride. My most recent hitcher was a tramp from a motorway service station in the UK. He was a glorious being. Suspicious at first, but opening up instantly to Monica's charming enquiries about his name and age and making good jokes. ('I was 3 once, but that was 100's of years ago.'). We chatted about the evils of TV and university and watches. About how we must all fight the divisive culture of distrust and fear. About how, when you're on the road, looking at the sky is seeing into your future (rain, sun, night, etc.) He wasn't a young man; 3 was over 60 years ago - but he had an enviable positivity and energy that wasn't ironic or caffeine-driven or manic. All his stuff, except, by pure chance, the diaries of his years on the road, had been stolen two days previously. He said, with touching embarrassment, that he didn't usually travel with plastic bags. (They were full of pre-written hitching signs!) He was a genuine travelling man. Someone who'd taken off at 15 and hardly looked back. He was almost always on the move and still loved it. He loved whole countries, but particularly England. He is one of a dying breed; not a proper gypsy and not homeless or car-less because he had lost his way, but because he'd found it: made an active choice to opt out. Easy to view him as some kind of hippy - but think of the times - 50 years ago, it was being 'hip' that he'd opted out of. Cultural changes have passed him by. We talked about how incredibly provocative it is to shrug and walk away into freedom. He used that as the rationale for the random acts of violence he's received over the years. I felt utterly privileged to have had him in our car.
When we stopped at another service station a couple of hours down the road, I gave him my rucksack. My best rucksack. One that had walked over 500 miles with me. As I pulled Monica's clothes out, he noted that it could take a lot of filling… it made me smile to think how far the woman who needed 500 miles on foot with Donkey Oatey and Ella the greyhound to make a break with her past, had come. My journey out of misery, from Gourdon to Jerez in 2005, was peppered with random gifts - jars of honey, loaves of bread, a hot hot chocolate carried by a man's wife, sat side-saddle on the back of a moped. But more importantly, the thousands of simple kindnesses I experienced restored my faith in humanity and my will to live. He insisted on giving me a hug, and a cherished "Don't ever change", which made me think about how much I had changed already.
I watched our hitcher walk away, jaunty, and was happy to let my own wanderlust go with him. I looked at the baby in the car-seat beside me and answered Monica, who asked from the back, why Paul had our bag.
"The one with the lightweight adjustable metal frame proper for lots of wearing one, the one you can live out of."
"Er - "
"Because it's just right for him."
I was vaguely worried about what on earth I'd do with all Monica's clothes, but then Serena stepped in with 'You don't need any bags do you, we're about to chuck a load away.' And there was a gorgeous blue rucksack: just right for us. This time I wasn't worried - my bag karma was in good order. Both of the bags I've received have been from women who really matter in my life - women with whom the attachment of the gift means something important, and will make that baggage a bit lighter every time I think of their provenance.
Natural generosity is like natural meanness - you just are or you just aren't. Funnily enough, the rhythms of daily life present few opportunities to give round corners: we're usually with the people of our communities. But nevertheless I'd like to champion indiscriminate giving and if you're not one of those who finds parting with things easy, at least give lifts. Because perhaps the most important gift we can give anyone is the shared realisation that there is very little reason to fear the other people coming and going on life's hilly road.