“I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
I’m glad the movie Wild introduced me to this author, because the quote above is important to remember. Honestly, how much time do we waste thinking, “Oh, I wish I’d done this?” or “I wish I’d done that?” It doesn’t matter, does it? What’s done is done. What’s in the past can’t be changed.
“Cheryl Strayed.” That’s not only the name of the author of the book Wild, on which the recent movie is based, but it is also the synopsis of the story.
Cheryl was no stranger to hardship. As a child, she and her mother suffered at the hands of an abusive alcoholic father. But Cheryl’s mother moved her family away to a farm, where they set up an idyllic life. At the start of the film, Cheryl and her mother are attending college together – Cheryl doing so after high school while her mother decides to go for her degree later in life.
Alas, the best way to make God laugh is to tell him your plans. At age 45, Cheryl’s mother is stricken with cancer and dies. Cheryl is left to make her own way and does not adjust to the change well. She cheats on her husband with any man who asks, and turns to hard drugs, even going so far as to inject heroin. She’s out of control.
An unexpected pregnancy (and though the movie is unclear on it, I assume an abortion), followed by her fed up husband seeking a divorce, prompts Cheryl to go on a quest to clear her mind- to hike the 1,000 mile Pacific Coast Trail.
Needless to say, it’s no easy task. She starts out with an enormous pack that is heavier than she is, learning along the way to abandon things she doesn’t need. She loses her boots and duct tapes her feet until she can get some more. She runs out of water and has to scoop up some from a fly infested puddle and treat it with iodine pills. One catastrophe after another occurs, but she refuses to stray off the path until she’s reached the end of the trail.
Overall, she finishes the journey having learned a good lesson – don’t stray from a good path and eventually your reward will come.
I’ve heard some comparisons to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love – but the differences are clear, the biggest one being that Gilbert had money, while Strayed was operating on the last of her savings, had nothing by the end of the trip, and often had to beg the kindness of strangers just to get by.
I don’t want to veer (or stray) too far off the path to criticize Gilbert. (I mean, to each their own, but a man would never be able to pull of a book about how freeing it was to abandon his wife and travel the world). Personally, in my mind anyway, Strayed’s downfall, spurred by the death of her mother, was a bit more understandable and her quest to get to the point where she could stop beating herself up for past mistakes and rebuild her life was inspiring.
Bookshelf Battle 