THE MAGIC OF LIVING BIG

Some people say that passion begins outside your comfort zone. That could mean taking a thrilling new risk, adopting a bolder approach or exploring a wonderful new place. Four well-known writers share the adventures that transformed them

They took a chance and it changed their lives...

There are other worlds out there, if only you are brave enough to take the first step

‘I became a woman alone, in search of adventure’ A chance conversation took Joanna Moorhead on a voyage deep into her family history, and halfway around the world on a journey of self-discovery

The plane was on its final approach into Mexico City and, for the hundredth time, I checked the piece of paper with a phone number on it. Somewhere down there, in that vast city of 21 million people, was my father’s cousin – an artist called Leonora Carrington.

Growing up, I’d heard whispers about a scandal, but had hardly thought about the woman at the centre of it. Leonora had been a wealthy debutante living in Paris in the 1930s when she ran away with a famous artist, the surrealist Max Ernst, eventually ending up in Mexico. It was a chance meeting with a Mexican woman that prompted me to mention her name. She told me Leonora was her country’s most famous living artist. I looked her up, and found her paintings mysterious, magical and enticing.

I was 43 at the time, a married mother of four, and a journalist living in London. My life revolved around domesticity. But as I delved into Leonora’s world, her spirit infected me. She’d lived a life without limits. I discovered she was still working as an artist in her 80s. I wanted to find out more about who she was; I wanted to hear her story, in her own words.

Everything about Mexico City seemed exotic, thrilling, intriguing: the brightly coloured buildings; the crowded streets where music spilled out of every doorway; stalls piled high with watermelons. I felt invigorated, excited, on the cusp of something life-changing.

Leonora was a tiny, straight-talking woman, dressed head to toe in black. From our first exchange she had me mesmerised. She introduced me to a surreal, art-filled province peopled by the ghosts of characters who had shaped her – great artists like Picasso and Frida Kahlo. Little by little her story unfolded, a story of escape from a stifling aristocratic world.

On that trip, and the many more that followed, I became someone else: a woman alone in search of adventure, an art researcher, a traveller whose real journey was taking place, as real journeys always do, inside my heart. I discovered what I had first glimpsed when I saw Leonora’s art: that there are other worlds out there to be discovered, if only you are brave enough to take the first step.

For Leonora, escape was for ever; for me, it was temporary. But my days with her, punctuated with tea, tequila and thrilling tales, changed me. By the time she died, in 2011, I was working on my book, The Surreal Life Of Leonora Carrington.

The most important thing she ever said to me was this: ‘Safety is an illusion.’ There is danger in remaining in your comfort zone, just as there is danger in breaking out of it. I carry that lesson with me, and my life is different because of it. Today, I take my risks with my eyes open, just as Leonora did.