restingmotion

Vacation

 

At times, over the past 23 months it seems that all I wanted was to get away, to go someplace, any place.  Why was it then, when a long-scheduled vacation finally loomed, I had decidedly mixed feelings?

Anyway, I went.  I had a great time.  It was not always smooth, but then, what in life is?  I admit that as much of my trepidation about traveling, about traveling alone, was that in the past, the world of 24 months ago, I was finding that I did not really relish solo travel all that much.  But perhaps I just needed to slough something off, something that I might not have sloughed off otherwise.  Perhaps I needed to realize that I am only as alone as I chose to be, and that solo travel does not imply loneliness.

I can admit that my initial reaction to Key West was mixed.  I arrived near dusk.  I ventured out to the seaport and along Duval Street and I was struggling with crowds and noise.  This was in sharp opposition to my reaction to airports and travel itself.  Why was it that Duval Street made me pull inward, whereas I can drift through a crowded airport as if in a bubble?

 

Something I noticed before, before I stopped traveling, is that I find the travel itself quite calming.   I am perhaps neurotically organized.  I am always packed and ready at least a day before.  I can feel at loose ends waiting.  But at the same time this helps with my feelings of calmness.  I've been stranded in airports due to cancelled planes and I tend to be calm and bemused.  There is something about going to an airport, about planning travel, that allows me to just let go of the idea that I have any say in controlling events in the world,  that allows me to make myself into an island of calm.  Home may be my kingdom, and I want control.  In the world, it is easier to slough all that off.  This seems like phenomenal growth.  Would that I could maintain it in my daily life.

When I arrive however, that bubble seems to burst; perhaps it is just the yearning that takes over, the idea of vacation, the idea of escape, of adventure, of fulfillment.  That first evening in an unfamiliar place, I was nervous in crowds but also nervous on a street that felt too quiet in contrast.  Of course this stems from years of training, compounded by now years of isolation and this crazy- making hyperbolic world we live in, a world that sometimes seems determined to feed on fear, on making us fear one another.  That first night on Duval Street was like the meeting of two opposing seas, leaving me in emotional turmoil.  I had left the safety of home, but hadn't yet found my vacation self.  I felt like Dorothy landing in Oz.  I think there is always that moment of transition, a moment when pent up expectation spills over; how we experience it may vary, but it too is part of the beauty of vacation.

I found a happy corner to settle down in.  I had soup, and shrimp, and a vantage point for people watching.  That airport calm descended once again.  I walked back to my hotel in the cooler night air.  I wasn't yet sure what I thought of this place; at first it seemed too casual, too loud, too "tourista".  But that was mostly me,  my own unsettledness. It takes me a little while to shift gears sometimes, even shifting into gears that have been getting more frequent use as I grow older.

The second morning I found a great breakfast and coffee spot, a place I stopped most mornings.  I wandered around old town.  I admired the neighborhoods, the bars, the stores, the music, the artists.  I loved the fact that chickens, and especially roosters, wandered around everywhere.  This seemed a metaphor for something, perhaps just the idea of not rushing.  I watched a gecko while I drank a cup of strong Cuban coffee. I hadn't put words to that something at that point; I am not sure I have yet.  But I too began to unwind, to enjoy this place, the ambiance, the casual vibe.  I began to let go of my own expectations.

That did not come as easily as it sounds writing the words.  It is so easy to write, "I let go". But nothing is really that simple, is it?  I found my joys and my disappointments came in waves, but overall the good quickly outnumbered the bad, and mostly came when least expected, lost in a moment, often of mundanity.

I retreated during the heat of the day to my shady porch, or perhaps to the big window with the easy chair and my knitting.  I am still not a creature of the hotter climes.  I love the angled sunshine of winter light.  I burn in the hotter sun, get sun poisoning and headaches, but that doesn't mean I don't love the easy going flow of tropical and sub-tropical climes.  And yet here I was, happy and content, enjoying shade and warm breezes, the languor of the siesta.

I was went to Key West for an event, a literary festival, but I will write about that in another post.  I attended.  I missed some things.  I walked a lot, more than I had in a long time, since before my cancer treatment, only 3 to 5 miles a day, but it was a start.  I hope to keep walking now that I am home in cooler weather.  I needed the boost, the interruption to my state of inertia.

What I found, and what I often forget, is that for me the best part of vacation is not seeing the sights, or doing the things that everyone tells me I must do, but in the wandering around, in talking to people.  In just sitting back and being in a place.   I went to the Hemingway museum.  I did not go on the water.   Yes I want to see and do but I also just want to unwind and be myself.  What is surprising, although it should not be, is that being myself in a foreign environment is subtly different than being myself at home, and that, in and of itself is quite revealing. What is always surprising is that the highlights aren't the museum, or the adventure, but the little moments one was not expecting.  The chance encounters, the birds at your feet, the crow of a rooster.

Vacation, all I ever wanted....

 

Well who knew?  Sometimes we go place for the wrong reasons.  Sometimes we go for the right reasons but with the wrong expectations.  Sometimes it all falls in place.  Sometimes it doesn't.  But if we are lucky something we needed is revealed. 

 

Key West.  I will be back.  And this from a woman who usually avoids vacations to hot places.  

 

And So The 2021 Reading List Closes

One year of reading ends and another begins.  I am not going to list all the books I read in 2021 here, but I will include links to the previous monthly installments at the end of this post for those who just can't get enough.  This is the first year in many that I actually posted a reading list every month.  In fact, there may have been months when I believe that is all I posted.

 

I read more books in 2021 than I did in 2020, and in both years I read far more than my yearly average over previous years.  I hadn't really thought about this very much until I sat on the fringes of a conversation regarding reading, where the others involved noted that they had in fact read less than usual since the Covid-19 pandemic began.  I noted, to myself, that I had read substantially more, but didn't jump in because the conversation was actually far more interesting without my input, which would have served no purpose other than bragging rights.  

 

As for my own increased reading there were several factors involved.  To begin with, I had decided to read more in 2020, even before the pandemic shut-down began, and then, like many others, I went through a period of ennui where I was unable to read.  I overcame that however.  To some degree I simply. read more because I went out less; there were fewer social obligations to distract me.  I also have to admit that health issues may have contributed; it would be naive to deny this.  My television viewing also increased exponentially, and that I do blame on health struggles and lack of energy.  My heaviest television use occurred at those times of greatest listlessness.  

 

I also cut back on social media in many ways.  One would think that in a time of greater social isolation, greater social media would enhance one's sense of connectivity.  But that was not what I found.  Yes, zoom was a godsend and I have friends I zoom with, and friends I talk with regularly.  But otherwise it seemed to me that I found social media sites polarizing.  Pandemic shut-downs were hard enough for everyone, but there were times that I felt that the combination of the news and social media, especially combined with a lack of one-on-one human interaction, were more isolating, and made conversations and interactions, if anything, more high-strung and volatile, as if none of us could completely get out of our heads.  Books helped me with this.

 

At any rate, I have been happy to be a reader, and I still wish to see myself as a reader.  I have no regrets over any book I have read, no matter if it was difficult or mindlessly simple, no matter if I found myself agreeing with the author, or disagreeing vehemently.  Each and every book showed me some perspective on the world outside of my own, and often I was most surprised by the books I least expected to be surprised by. 

 

Still my plan is to read less in 2022.  My goal is 60 books, and I would be very happy if that is all I read.  I will also be happy if I read more, or even less.  I have other things I want to do with my time, and although those things do involve social engagement, I also find I have no desire to be out in the world as much as I was prior to 2020.  In short it is all an adjustment.  Who knows where it will all lead.

 

Note that already my reading was tapering off in December:  6 books, 5 of them fiction.  The one non-fiction book, Avrum Bluming's Estrogen Matters, was a reread.  I had read it the first time in April, so technically, although there are 140 books listed, that one was listed twice, for a total of 139 books.

 

135. Edwige Danticat: Claire of the Sea Light.

136. Alice Hoffman: The Marriage of Opposites.

137. Joy Jordan-Lake:  Under a Gilded Moon.

138. Avrum  Bluming: Estrogen Matters.

139. Louise Penny: Still Life.

140. Jean Stafford: Boston Adventure.

 

Edwige Danticat's Claire of the Sea Light takes place in Haiti in the seaside village of Ville Rose.  The center of the novel is the occasion of Claire Limye Lanme's 7th birthday and in many ways the action of the book weaves its way around this center, much like a circular maze, using Claire's story to tell the story of the village, its history, its residents, as well as the story of Claire herself.  In the first part of the book we get a fairly straight-forward explication of Claire's story up until the time of this birthday, and Claire closes out the novel, making a decision about her own place in this intricately woven web.  In between these two points, the story moves forward, backward, and often sideways, showing us the interconnected lives that make up this place, and which make up the underlying foundation on which Claire's life is built.  It is a fascinating, and often poetically told story.  Despite the name of the novel, Claire is not the main character, she is simply a point of light around which all these other stories come into focus and are told.  It is a beautiful and compelling novel, although the story line is often convoluted and will frustrate the less than focused reader.    It is as much the story of a place as of a person, and in fact the story of each person is as much the story of the place and the people that shaped them.  Claire initially seems as much an idea, a creature of mist and yearning as she seems a child, just because of the way the story focuses around her but not on her.   As the stories weave together, the reader also begins to see how Claire will, herself, become interwoven into the story of this place, and this place will be interwoven into her own story.

 

Alice Hoffman's The Marriage of Opposites also takes place in the Caribbean but it is an entirely different kind of novel, much more in the vein of classic historical fiction.  It is the story of Rachel Pomie Petit Pizarro, the mother of the painter Camille Pissarro, beginning with her childhood in the prosperous Jewish community in Saint Thomas and ending in France.  Hoffman paints a fascinating and occasionally maddening portrait of Rachel and through this rather good historical novel she also allows the reader to explore the precarious situation of women in early 19th century colonial life.  Rachel's stories, and her descriptions of Saint Thomas seem to flow from some of Pissarro's work.  I am certain this is intentional as Hoffman tries to weave together the little we know of Pissarro's family with what we do know of his work as an artist.  I found the story also fascinating because it explores the Jewish culture of St. Thomas, where there had been a strong sephardic Jewish community since 1700. Hoffman's description of the synagogue itself is particularly beautiful, blending a bit of magic with historical reality in the understanding and eyes of a child, the young Rachel. The telling drove me back down memory lane, allowing me to relive my own experience of visiting the synagogue of Congregation Beracha Veshalom Vegmiluth Hasadim in St Thomas, which is one of the oldest standing synagogue I have personally been to.  This one is the second oldest building built as a synagogue in the Untied states, having been built in 1832, and it is still in use. 

 

From there, and continuing in the historical fiction vein, I read Joy Jordan Lake's Under a Gilded Moon, which concerns the Vanderbilts and the building of  the Biltmore Estate in nearby Asheville, North Carolina.  This was a book club choice, I believe partially chosen because it is about local, or at least regional history.  The novel shows the sharp dichotomy between the Vanderbilts, including their friends and kin, and their attitudes toward the poorer residents of the region. I felt it was particularly good at describing the beauty of the scenery. It suffered from attempting to add in too many "real people" and "real places", as if somehow it had to be a survey of all that was once here, at the expense of the story line.  It was clear a great deal of research went into the novel but the detail overwhelmed the story, resulting in inconsistently tenuous connections and gaps in the plot.  Still the novel did open a discussion into the roots of the divisions and attitudes, between rich and poor, attitudes that we still struggle with to this day.

 

For my other book group, i reread Still Life, the first of Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache novels.  I enjoyed reading it the second time as much as I had the first, which makes me think I will enjoy it again and again, and it was good, from this perspective to see how many of the characters who might take center stage in later novels are introduced here.  

 

Lastly I read Jean Stafford's early novel Boston Adventure, which proved to be a difficult choice.  The novel itself was good although at times tedious.  It is a carefully painted and studied portrait of Boston Society in the mid 20th century told from the perspective of an outsider, a poor girl, who is brought into the circle but who is never really a part of it.  In many ways it is a fascinating study of social isolation, perhaps not the best thing to read when our entire culture has been experimenting with a different vein of social isolation.  It is also a fascinating study of the cruelty that is often contained in social "kindnesses", in the way that persons of one class or milieu often, in the name of "helping", create effective prisons without explicitly meaning to do so. It was a worthwhile novel, but not perhaps the best airplane reading, where I would have done better with one (or four) short frivolous novels.

 

Previous months:
January, February, March, April, May, June, July1 and July2, August, September, October, November.

 

 

 

Joy. A Reflection.

A few weeks ago, attending a small birthday celebration among friends, the birthday girl asked the members of the party to reflect on the year that was coming to a close.  When it was my turn to speak, another friend interrupted and deflected the conversation into another topic.  I was a little put off, and a few minutes later was talking to a third friend, telling her what a positive experience the past year had been, when she asked that I wait and share my comments with the group.  And yet, when the topic came up again, I was once again interrupted, and the birthday girl was distracted with another unrelated conversation. I never did get a chance to speak.

 

In some ways this conversation, with all its attendant frustrations, is a mirror for my year, and, in fact, much of what I was hoping to say that evening.   I can state upfront that at that moment I felt unheard, and uncared-for, as if my year and my thoughts were somehow less valid than anyone else's.  But that was also a fleeting feeling, and like so many disappointments in life, one can either hang onto a momentary flash of negative emotion, letting it shape and color your being, or one can simply release it into the air and let it go.  I chose the latter, just as I chose, despite a year that many would consider challenging, to see it as a good year, chose to count my blessings rather than my losses.  

 

In fact, what I was going to say that evening was not about cancer or struggle or how hard the year had been; everyone in that room knew what I had been through, knew my struggles and that was not the time to reiterate them.  What I had actually been about to say was that through my experience I had been offered an opportunity, and in a way a blessing,  because I was forced out of the comfort zone of habit.  Habits are not always to our benefit. It was only through the process of falling apart that I was able to realize the possibility of rebuilding, of rebirth if you will.   I am in fact happier today than I was at this time last year; I am happier today than I was two years ago.  That does not mean the road was easy; in fact it was damn difficult at times.  But no one ever promised any of us an easy road, and the more mature I become the more I see that ease and comfort often hamper growth and creativity.  I would not wish cancer on anyone.  But at the same time, increasingly, neither would I wish anyone bland comfort and ease.  There is something in our essence as Homo Sapiens that needs to be challenged, that needs to create, and the process of creation is a process born of destruction.  We cannot live up to our full potential without constantly dislodging ourselves from the dead-ends life has imposed on us, no, that we have imposed upon ourselves.

 

In retrospect I saw that my friend, fearing I my comments would be something of a "downer" was deflecting, as she had been reared to do, steering the conversation away from unpleasantness and toward idle chatter.  Of course this did mean that my thoughts went unheard; it also meant that on some level she expected something less of me than I was going to offer.  But it also presented an opportunity for forgiveness.  I realized that my thoughts were no less valid for not being heard. Yes, we all want to feel heard, and that is an important part of feeling loved. The crime was not really against me, but against herself and the others.  In choosing to deflect, she was choosing not to engage on a personal level, to live on a surface level, which is both her choice, and her loss. Yes, she was protecting herself from despair, but she was also closing herself off from the possibility of joy.  The simple truth is that all of our words deserve to be heard. And by shutting down each others words we close ourselves off to the possibility of connection, and ultimately to joy and through joy, hope.

 

For that, it seems is one of the things I have learned this year, perhaps one of the many things I have known in my head for a long time, but which I have not always practiced in my heart, is that life is short, that I am very lucky, and that it behooves us all to treasure and hold onto joy.    Joy has nothing to do with the trials of life; and although it often does us good to rail against pain and affliction, holding onto our grief, our anger and our sadness does us no good.  When we cannot manage hope, we can still find joy.  Through joy we can often find happiness and love. Holding onto joy teaches us that there are things we can let slip away, that forgiveness is not difficult once we let go of pain. Taking even hesitant steps toward joy starts us on a path that can lead us to finding  hope in a world that occasionally seems devoid of just that.

 

In the past two years the median life expectancy in the US has dropped by 1.5 years. Regardless of the numbers, no single one of us is guaranteed anything, to live to the median, or beyond it.  And yet this reminds me of something.  The median life expectancy of an American is roughly slightly over 4100 weeks, perhaps less by these new calculations.  I have already lived over 3200 of those weeks.  No matter how I look at it, I am on the downward slope.  It is easy when we are young to think we always have time, but it is not true.  Most of my time is already in the past.  When we look at years it all seems so far away; when I look at weeks, it all seems so short.  I want my weeks to be about joy, whatever joy I am finding in the moment of that particular week.  Last week it may have been about family. This week joy revolves around friends and fabric and creative endeavors.  If I am lucky I have 900 more weeks, perhaps more, perhaps less.  But the luck isn't in the number of weeks; it is in how I chose to live those weeks. The gift is that I can chose who I want to be.  I can chose joy.  It is not about what happens, or even time itself, but what I chose to make of my time in my life.

 

I choose joy.