Money. Money. Money.
It’s mentioned 31 times in Wild by Cheryl Strayed.
Money is often on the narrator’s mind. Having money. Not having money. Being rich with $20 in her pocket. Scraping together enough change to buy a Snapple lemonade.
Oh, that Snapple lemonade. I’ve never wanted one in my life until I read this book.
I want one right now, in fact. Really badly.
On page 280, Strayed writes, “I probably wouldn’t have been fearless enough to go on such a trip with so little money if I hadn’t grown up without it. I’d always thought of my family’s economic standing in terms of what I didn’t get: camp and lessons and travel and college tuition and the inexplicable ease that comes when you’ve got access to a credit card that someone else is paying off. But now I could see the line between this and that—between a childhood in which I saw my mother and stepfather forging ahead over and over again with two pennies in their pocket and my own general sense that I could do it too.”
A connection between money and fearlessness. A connection between not having enough and having enough.
The word “enough” is mentioned 54 times. What does money have to do with being enough in this book?
What does money have to do with being lost and being found?
What does not having to focus on money allow in the story?
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There’s a passage in the book when Paul has learned of her heroin use and drives 1700 miles to wish her Happy Birthday. He says, “You seem like you aren’t here.” He wants to take her away from the heroin, but she tells him she needs to think. She goes off, but finds that “Heroin had made me dumb and distant from myself. A thought would form and then evaporate.”
Approached by a man who wants $3 for diapers, she becomes so confused by his “twisting questions and sorry stories” that she stands to pull her last ten dollars from her pocket. Her last ten. And he pulls a knife on her.
This scene turns on the issue of money and the threat of violence, and makes her aware of how lost she has been. She calls Paul and leaves with him. Though Joe reappears and she falls back into the sex and drugs for a bit, an unexpected pregnancy causes her to face her despair over the “sick mire” she’d made of her life since her mother died. She remembers the PCT guide book, buys it, and reads it multiple times over the next few months, realizing “I had to change.” Losing the ten dollars is a metaphor for how lost she was. She could have lost her life to the man with the sorry stories, or to the heroin. The loss of that ten dollars helped her recognize that she was lost and propelled her to search for herself.
Here in “civilization,” many people define themselves by what they can buy. On the trail there is nothing to buy and money can’t save you from starving or freezing to death. Courage and strength and surviving depended on other things.
While on her journey, Strayed could experience life with only a few dollars (or two cents) in her pocket and realize it didn’t matter – could reflect and draw upon the memories of her family when she was growing up, and experience for herself that “enough-ness” that didn’t count on how much money she had. It only really mattered when she was back in the “civilization” of the towns she stopped in; the hunger for the Snapple Lemonade, the comparisons between her sometimes not being able to buy much to eat while surrounded by others mindlessly consuming food.
I think there were some really elemental, instructive moments that were important to her journey that involved money — I loved (and know first-hand) the feeling of sudden wealth with having $20; the decisions she had to make when she only had x amount of money. Those kinds of decision-making situations are empowering in their own way.
Christina, did you really count the number of times ‘money’ and ‘enough’ were mentioned in the book? 🙂
She’s definitely living in the moment when she doesn’t focus on the money. Isn’t that what we all are suppose to be doing? I’m trying to do that everyday.
On the other hand, money seemed very important to Cheryl to survive. I was amazed that she never begged or asked for help when she was in dire need!