“I craved to go beyond the garden gate, to follow the road that passed it by, and to set out for the Unknown.”
— Alexandra David-Néel
From the preface of 'My Journey to Lhasa' (1927), where David-Néel recalls her childhood longing to explore beyond the familiar. She became the first Western woman to enter Lhasa in February 1924.
That road beyond our garden gate haunted me as a child. I could not name what pulled me toward it, only that staying felt like a slow dying. So I kept moving. At fifty-five, I entered Lhasa disguised as a beggar, face black with soot, feet raw from months in the snow. People called it impossible. They called it reckless. I called it necessary. The Unknown was never something I chased for glory. It was the only place I could breathe.