Packing for a trip, even one that just means being away from home a couple days, is never easy for me. Deciding on what clothes to bring is only half the problem. The other half is deciding what books to bring.
What if I don’t like a book I have packed? Then what will I read?
What if I finish a book faster than anticipated? What will I read then?
What if I have more time to read than anticipated? (A good problem to have, as far as I’m concerned.) Will I have enough to read?
For me, these are bigger questions than deciding how many changes of clothes to bring with me. The good news is that generally we travel in our car, so I have room for a stockpile of reading material.
My most recent book decision dilemma was our weekend in Door County.
Books I Brought With Me
After hemming and hawing, I selected 4 books for this three day vacation (Two of the three days were mainly in the car.) I had just read two serious literary fiction books, Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange and A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power (see April 18 post.) and I knew I needed something lighter.
An Irish Country Courtship by Patrick Taylor. I have read others in this charming series and know I will read others in the future. This one focuses on the “love life” of physician Fingel O”Reilly, as he courts Kitty. He has mourned the death of his wife for a long time, and Kitty is sensitive to his hesitancy about a new relationship in his life. In the meantime his associate has been fluffed off by a woman he thought was “the one,” and now he wonders if life as a village GP is enough for him. He ponders a decision.
In these short months he’d certainly had a fair sampling of the medical side of general practice, but he hasn’t been prepared for the village. Gradually, he’s come to learn it wasn’t simply a collection of houses, shops, a pub, and a couple of churches. It was an entity, and as an animal was the whole of its parts, so too was the village a many faceted, living organism. p. 287.
I’m grateful the author includes a glossary of Irish words and terms in the book. This time my favorite word is “harpled,” walking awkwardly, favoring a sore leg or back.
A Match Made for Heaven #7 in the Lane Winslow series by Iona Whishaw. Much of this book is set in Tucson, AZ, rather than Canada and for a very good reason. I don’t want to say why for those you of you who have not gotten this far in the series yet. This was perfect vacation reading. I will soon start reading #8.
One Woman Show by Christine Coulson. This was my “just in case” book. Just in case I finished both of the other books. This is a short, new novel, meant to be read in one sitting. The book documents much of the life of Kitty (1911-1998), but it is the structure that is most interesting. Her life is described as a series of art works, with an entry on each page.
BRIDE, AGED 19, 1926 Mrs. William Wallingford III (known as Kitty) Collection of William Wallingford III (known as Bucky) Ex-Collection of Martha and Harrison Whitaker
Considered the apex of early twentieth-century production. Kitty is thoroughly polished, bound in white silk, and decorated with a clutch of pristine lily of the valley. The rest of her garniture joins her, but with deliberately less polish and packaging. The great and the good gather to see the exhibition and rave about the elegant lines and immaculate condition. Kitty glistens in the light of her new pedestal and foolishly considers herself now unbreakable.
Clever and thought-provoking.
The Eloquence of Silence, Surprising Wisdom in Tales of Emptiness by Thomas Moore. This books is one of my current devotion companions. Good food for reflection.
A Surprise Book Store
I selected my vacation book companions well–finished the Patrick Taylor, which I had started at home, and read in its entirety the Iona Whishaw mystery and read a couple chapters each day in Thomas Moore’s book. I saved One Woman Show and read it when we got home.
So well-done, Nancy. But then we discovered a bookstore new to us in Sturgeon Bay, which is at the entrance of the main part of the Door County Peninsula, and the book bag bulged. What a lovely and well-curated bookstore with a knowledgeable storeowner/bookseller, and you can bet we will stop there each trip we make to Door County.
Here are my selections:
The Mystery Writer by Solari Gentil. I read and enjoyed her earlier book, The Woman in the Library and so am eager to read this one. I also discovered that she has written a mystery series set in WWII, the Rowland Sinclair series. When I have completed all 11 of the Iona Whishaw books, I am sure I will investigate these.
An Irish Country Welcome by Patrick Taylor. This follows the one I just read, An Irish Country Courtship. The covers of these books, by the way, are so lovely.
Wild Atlantic Women, Walking Ireland’s West Coast by Grainne Lyons. To continue the Irish theme!
House Lessons, Renovating a Life by Erica Bauermeister. Bauermeister is the author of several novels as well, which I have not yet read, but this memoir is so beautifully written that I may add her other titles to my TBR. When I go to an independent bookstore I like to buy a WILD CARD book, meaning a book I have not heard of before, but for whatever reason it appeals. This was true for this book and the Wild Atlantic Women book, as well. Both my husband and I have now read House Lessons and loved it. Bauermeister and her husband live in Seattle, but decide to buy a ramshackle house in Port Townsend, WA. This is the story of that renovation, but also the life lessons learned along the way–the ways one’s life is a kind of ongoing renovation.
Book Presents
This weekend away was to celebrate my birthday and, no surprise, my favorite present is a new book. My husband is always nervous about buying me a book, anticipating I may have already read what he selects, but he did well. Now on my TBR bookshelf are these three–two mysteries and a nonfiction title.
Rogue Justice by Stacey Abrams
Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge (Notice a similarity in title and cover to Julia Child’s masterpiece?)
Vesper Flights by Helen MacDonald. I loved H is For Hawk, but have not yet read this one.
Soon we will go on a road trip to visit our son and daughter-in-love in Cleveland and then spend a few days in Michigan, so the dilemma of what books to bring will resurface once again. Such a problem!
An Invitation
Do you take books on vacation? How do you decide what to bring with you? I would love to know.
NOTE:
I will post my April Book Report Summary on May 2.
Paris and the Cotswolds may not be part of current plans.
We no longer live at our beloved Sweetwater Farm.
Living in Minnesota , instead of Ohio, means I can no longer decide on a whim to spend a day at Chautauqua.
Dear and as meaningful to me as those places are, however, they are not my only happy places.
I am happy most of the time wherever I am, but oh, how happy I was this last weekend to be in one of my happiest of happy places: Door County, WI, which is only 5 1/2 hours away from our St Paul home.
Over the years we have spent many happy times there, sometimes with family, sometimes with friends, sometimes just the two of us, which was the case this time–my birthday present planned by my husband. It is a place we gravitate to over and over again.
Do we gravitate there over and over again because being there makes us happy or because we are happy there do we want to go there again and again? Chicken and egg?
A Childhood Happy Place
When I was growing up my family moved many times. My Dad worked for a large corporation and was transferred frequently as he climbed the company ladder. At the end of the school year, the moving van would appear at our house, but before we moved into our new home, we returned to the same summer vacation spot in northern Minnesota. Year after year. Summer after summer. That was a place of both grounding and transition. Of memories and memory-making. Of ease and taking a breath before the work of resettlement. Of surety and stability. Of time to process the loss of friends and to hope for the presence of new ones. Of comfort. We knew what to expect and how we would spend our days.
That place was our past, our present, and a path to the future.
The Touch of Past, Present, and Future
Because we vacationed in Door County with our children when they were young and later, in their adult years with our grandchildren part of the scene, we have a history there. We reminisce about our son sketching on the sandy beach and about taking the ferry to Washington Island specifically to go to the book store there, and about playing miniature golf when the club was taller than our grandson and eating cherry coffee cake at the White Gull Inn. And more. So much more.
Going there now reminds us of some of the building blocks of our lives. The conversations we had while savoring the sunset or fruity daiquiris before a leisurely dinner. The dreams fulfilled and those that drifted away. When we laughed and what we treasured. Who we have been and how we lived.
And now in the present in this happy place, the past sits lightly, and we feel a simple, but rich gratitude for being here. For having this time to be together. The weather doesn’t dictate the gift of this time. We eat good meals. We browse in favorite shops, and we roam back roads, delighting when we spot sandhill cranes in an open field and a deer loping across a gravel road. We gaze at the water as the sky turns into evening pink. We read and doze in our room, no longer pulled to do something, go somewhere. Being here now is enough.
And the future? Well, who knows much about what the future holds, beyond our eventual deaths. But we envision more time in this happy place because we feel welcomed and at home there. But more than that it is a place that seems to support the people we are becoming, for that becoming continues until it doesn’t.
Past Door County Moments
An Invitation
Where are the places that represent past, present, and future for you? I would love to know.
In order to have this–cherry coffee cake–first, there must be this.
We spent this past weekend in Door County, WI, a place that over the years has become a home away from home, even though we rarely stay at the same place. At breakfast one morning at our favorite place, The White Gull Inn in Fish Creek, we tried to remember all the times Door County has been our vacation, get-away destination. We listed at least 20 times, and I’m sure we missed a few.
For those of you who don’t know, Door County is a peninsula with Green Bay on one side and Lake Michigan on the other. Many have referred to it as the Cape Cod of the Midwest. That’s fine, but I don’t think it needs to be compared to anything–it is its own kind of time-out haven.
My husband planned the trip this time to celebrate my 75th birthday, which seems like a logical time in itself to reminisce and honor the past without neglecting the present or denying the realities of the future. We roamed favorite routes, as we always do, staying alert for sandhill cranes and turkeys, glimpses of spectacular water views, and the pink haze on the cherry trees, moving steadily towards blossom time. We noted what stores and restaurants were still alive and hopefully well, and kept saying, “Remember when…”
A kind of life review of our adult years.
Neither of us could remember how we learned about Door County or when we had first visited, but we obviously fell in love with it and kept returning–sometimes just the two of us, but also family times when our children were little. And later when our children were grown. The summer of 2010, when we lived in Madison, we rented a house for a month. Bruce came for the weekends, and our daughter and family came for a few days, too.
I spent my alone time reading and writing. (No surprise!)
When I was growing up and my family moved frequently, we always went to the same resort in northern Minnesota for a week or two before moving to our new home. That time served as transition time, easing us from one place to another. Whether my parents realized they were doing that or not, that week offered a touchstone, making what was changing and what was ahead and what was left behind not quite so daunting.
Door County has become a similar touchstone–a place where I mark the changes in our lives, not just as memories, precious though they are, but as a timeline of growth and development. I recall many leisurely dinners, lingering over what we came to think of as “daiquiri talk,” dreaming and imagining what our future might hold, could hold. In fact, Door County was where we realized that we wanted to retire back to St Paul and put a plan to do just that into motion.
This past weekend was quiet, for the spring/summer season has not yet begun, and I realized how much less I need “to do,” “to see,” “to visit,” in this stage of my life. How content we were to spend more time reading in our pretty room or on the balcony.
Note the cherry wallpaper! Cherries are a definite theme in Door County.
We have celebrated birthdays and anniversaries in Door County and have been there each season. We have each had alone time there plus been there with friends and family. I don’t need everything to be the same with each visit there, although I would be crushed if the White Gull Inn closed, but instead enjoy seeing the mix of old and new. We’ve been young there, and now we are old there. I feel the span of time there, and it is a good feeling.
Perhaps if we were still living in the home where we raised our family, a home where we lived for decades, I might prefer to vacation always in new places, to cultivate new places, new experiences, but instead, Door County has become the place of returning. The place where time is measured. It is the place where each time we leave, I think about when we might return to our home away from home.
One More Thing:
As we often do, when we are out roaming, we visit a library. I think if I were living in Door County, I would spend a good chunk of time in Egg Harbor’s library–with its water view and comfortable places to sit and read.
Not only were there books, but a charming seed library too.
An Invitation
Do you have a home away from home? A place that is an emotional tug? I would love to know.
Living on Life's Labyrinth 