Known books as travel companions

I've been reading M Train by Patti Smith. One of the things that has jumped out at me is her practice of choosing from among books she's already read those that she will bring along when she travels. We don't see her choosing from books on her reading list, or the best sellers pages, or an online book site. Not that she's not also reading books new to her, but when journeying, she pulls out from shelves and storage boxes those that she knows will be companions for the specific journey ahead.

Which books might you think of as travel companions?

~~~

[Photo: taken of curtains at the Bachman's Ideas House this past spring.]

Trains and travel

I recently rode a train somewhere, instead of driving, instead of flying. The train in the picture above is not the one I took but the train on the track outside my window. This picture doesn't do it justice but what a beauty it was. I love traveling by train because you have hours and hours to read,  look out the window, walk around, sit in the observation car, sleep, think, dream. No worries about weather or traffic. You have time to switch gears before you arrive at your destination, time to leave busyness behind; you have time to switch gears again before you arrive back home, back at work. I think I've posted this quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh on this blog years ago but stepping on to a train pulls it up from my memory yet again.

“It is strange, but the minute I got on the train and left I felt utterly different. I think one’s feelings and thoughts, the real true deep ones, are better focused when you get away because they are detached from their stale associations: one’s desk and room and bed and mirror. They become clear and just themselves, the way colors of a sunset or a birch grove seen upside down become clearer, because the colors are disassociated from their familiar forms. Do you see what I mean?”

–Anne Morrow Lindbergh, from Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead

Waiting on the World

Over Thanksgiving we traveled to New York City, which was a great joy but also a continual exercise in patience: waiting for airport security lines, waiting for planes to board and deplane, waiting for crowds to move, waiting for buses and subway trains, for restaurant tables, for Stop lights and Don't Walk signs. 

When packing for the trip and without a thought to the need for patience that such a trip would envitably exact, I had thrown in my backpack the unopened book Patience: How We Wait Upon the World by David Baily Harned. Reading a few pages in my hotel room each night, I barely made a start at the book but got far enough to appreciate Harned's contrast between patience as a civic virtue and patience as a spiritual virtue. 

Pilot: There's another plane parked at our gate, so it will be a few minutes until we can deplane. We appreciate your patience.

Harned writes, "Perhaps impatience is not the original human sin--though some would argue that it is--but there has been consistent agreement within the Christian tradition that impatience does not signify merely the absence of a single virtue but the erosion of them all." Quoting William Lynch, Harned suggests that "the decision to wait is one of the great human acts." 

A big and interesting world

Often there are stretches of time when I don’t get out much. The last month or so has been one of those stretches. Between a heavier-than-normal workload and sharing a car between three people I’ve been home more often than not. But there are times I do get on a plane and fly somewhere, mostly for work. When I leave and return I bring back images that feed my imagination for a long time, like bringing home fresh supplies for the pantry.

Earlier this summer I went to Berlin for a couple days for a work project and saw Checkpoint Charlie and a remnant of the Berlin wall in a free hour, ate white asparagus for the first time, and bought a bar of dark chocolate with juniper berries. Last week I broke my home-/office-bound stretch with a 48-hour trip to Denver, again for a work project. Due to the trip’s short duration, I didn’t see anything more than the hotel and what I could see on the ride to and from the airport. But even that is something. Between the airport and the city the land is suprisingly wide open. The first shuttle van driver--who seemed to love his job--discreetly danced with his fingers to the 80s disco music he had softly playing on the car radio, and occasionally tapped out the beat with the most intentional shakes of his head from side to side. I’m sure he thought no one would notice.  The small homes on city lots that lined the back streets he drove entering Denver are laviously landscaped, favoring a trimmed topiary style. At a stop light, the driver suddenly threw open his door and jumped out, running first to the street corner on our right and then to the corner on our left, pushing the “walk” buttons at each corner’s light. Back in the car he beamed with pride over this trick to coax a light to turn sooner in his favor, despite the fact that a car turning left from the intersecting street nearly shaved off the van’s front door as he was running from corner to corner. The second shuttle driver polled his passengers on where they lived and what was historically or culturally interesting about those places. “I want to know where I should go once I have the opportunity to travel,” he said. As we approached the airport, he pointed out the commissioned blue mustang rearing up between the inbound and outbound lanes, controversial now because of its eery red eyes and the fact that it fell on and crushed its maker during its making.

While walking through the Denver airport I thought back to the last time I had been there, a little more than 4 years ago. My son and I were flying to the west coast to visit a potential college and had a couple-hour layover there between Minneapolis and Seattle. As it turned out, his final college decision swung east and so he spent his four years on the opposite coast. All graduated now, he moved to New York City yesterday to start his life’s exciting next chapter.

I recently read Willa Cather’s O Pioneers. In the novel, Alexandra, the novel’s main character, told her friend Carl the story of a neighbor who was despondent over the sameness of life, but after going away to visit relatives in Iowa for awhile, came back happy and stayed happy despite the sameness, “contented to live and work in a world that’s so big and interesting.” Alexandra concluded it was similar for her. Although unlike her neighbor, she had never really left the prairie and experienced that bigness herself, but just knowing it was there, imagining it, seeing herself operating within that world--and knowing she worked in part to send her brother out into that world--was enough to reconcile her with her life.

Today, I’m home, back at my desk and the computer and relative sameness. The house is quiet. My son is gone--this makes two of them--out into the big and interesting world. Knowing it’s there and imagining them operating within it is at once a joy and a grieving, a longing and a thrill. Let the reconciling proceed.

Tales of two couples

On the plane last week–

An older couple is sitting next to me: the man at the window, his wife in the middle, me on the aisle. He is looking out the window telling her what he sees. She says to him, “I don’t need a play by play.”

She is reading ads from the “Sky Mall” catalog. She begins to read them aloud to her husband. A giant crossword puzzle. Ear cuffs. A keyboard.

He listens but keeps looking out the window. “We’re preparing for take-off,” he tells her.

“You just be quiet,” she answers.

A mail sorter box. Storage bins. A bicycle rack for the garage.

“We’re in a line-up now,” he says.

“Hmm,” is her response. Eyes still on the catalog.

A watch. Fruit baskets.

The plane takes off, rising high above the Mall of America, the Missippi River, the Minnesota River. She stops reading aloud and puts the catalog back in the seat pocket in front of her. He takes his eyes away from the window. She rests her head on his shoulder; he rests his head on hers. They both go to sleep.

~~~

On the cable car–

Cable car conductor: “Hang on now. Watch the parked cars to your right. Watch the cable car to your left. Hang on now.” [In this era of lawsuits and liability it is hard to believe that people can ride the cable car--which goes up and down seriously steep hills on narrow and trafficked streets--standing on the running board and holding on, if they desire, to the poles.]

Despite the admonitions by the cable car conductor the woman in front of me, standing on the running board, is not hanging on. Going up, coming down. Relaxed, arms loosely hanging down, hands folded in front of her. Feet flat on the running board. Blonde hair up with a clip. Purple mascara. White tank top and shorts. White leather shoes. Gold rings on almost every finger, gold bracelet on each wrist. Based on her accent I’d guess she was European. Only a couple times does she reach a hand up past her companion’s shoulder to grasp the pole and it seems to be unrelated to the incline we are traveling at that moment. In contrast, her companion--I don’t get the feeling they're married--holds onto the pole the entire time. He appears about ten years younger than she does, although maybe her face just has more sun damage. He's a bit overweight while she is slender. He has sunglasses; she does not. To her all white clothing, he is in all blue–a blue print cotton collar shirt, button-down. Denim shorts. I can’t hear him talk so I can’t identify his nationality.

The couple got off at Lombard street, whose claim to fame is that it most crooked street in America. After our cable car had turned around near Fisherman's Wharf, we passed them on a street corner where he was taking a picture of her, his fearless older girlfriend with purple mascara.

West coast work and wishes

Yesterday I flew out to San Francisco for a work project that has been the focus of my attention for the past several weeks. [Note the absence of much of interest posted at this URL for about the same length of time. :)]  I didn't think I'd have any free time while I was here, but today I had a couple hours free in the morning. Time enough to walk down to one of the piers and breathe in some salt air. It was so lovely.

I bought a latte at an outdoor stand of Blue Bottle Coffee. The line was about 20 people deep so I figured it had to be good coffee, and it was. I took a picture of their set up because it was so interesting and theoretically I could download it now from my camera and post it here to show you but that is too much work for this time of night. Just picture that there were a couple  Coleman stoves lit, with a stainless steel hefty teapot on each burner to boil water. Next to the Coleman stoves there was a handmade-looking thing with four (I think it was four) holes in a wood board elevated about one foot off a table. Into each hole was placed a coffee filter. Under each hole was placed a coffee cup. The guy in charge of this part of the operation would boil the water, fill each filter with coffee, pour the water through the filter and distribute the filled cup to the waiting customer. Espresso drinks were made using standard espresso machine and so weren't as interesting to watch being prepared. My latte was very good, however, and I can understand why this place had the long lines. I bought half a pound of their organic coffee to bring home.

Since it is my first time to San Francisco I'm very glad to see more than the hotel. Speaking of my hotel, it is a rather strange hotel. It's very nice--actually a fairly new $$ chain, I think--but unexpected for a hotel that probably expects most of its guests to be business travelers. It's a cross between a late-70s disco and a late 60s/early 70s weird candle/incense/poster/"other" shop, the kind of shop my mother used to not let me go into. The lobby has only dim lights and candles. Even in the room there is no main light. Just atmosphere sort of lighting, although there is a great window seat. The hallways only have dim blue and green lights in them. Behind the check-in counter there are strings of silver beads hanging down with blue lights flashing eerily behind them. From a projector across the room, these words are projected across the silver beads: 

“Wish. Command. Whenever/Whatever.”

That slogan sounds a bit more suited to Pinocchio's Pleasure Island than a business traveler-oriented hotel. The slogan also strikes me as just a bit ironic in light of the fact that the book I brought with me to read in some spare moments is Saint Augustine's, Confessions.

From this morning's reading:

"The house of my soul is too small to receive Thee: let it be enlarged by Thee. It is all in ruins: do Thou repair it. There are things in it that must offend Thy gaze, I confess and know."

Tomorrow the wishes I would like granted include: time enough in the morning to sit on the window seat and begin Book Two of Confessions, time enough in between meetings for another walk either to one of the other piers or to Grace Cathedral Church for a service, to look at their bells, or to walk the labryinth, and another cup of great coffee.

Imagining myself elsewhere

The day after we said goodbye to our son outside his dorm in Boston, we left going a different way than we had come. In more ways than one. We headed down through Rhode Island and across Connecticut with our sights set on Manhattan. I’d only been there twice before, brief brief visits each, and my husband had never been there so this seemed like an opportune time to be New York City tourists.

We got a hotel in Connecticut and took a morning commuter train into Grand Central Station. From there we walked to Time Square and stopped at the visitor’s information office there to pick up a map and any other information that would help us conquer the city in a day’s time. As we were leaving the office, a brochure for a double-decker bus tour caught my eye and we stopped to consider. It took us only a minute to decide to buy two tickets. Yes, it was the cliche tourist thing to do but it was our answer to how to see as much of the city as we could in the limited time we had. The purchase of one ticket entitled the bearer of that ticket to go on four loop tours. We went on three of the four. The only reason we didn’t go on all four was that we missed the last bus of the day for one of the loops. It turned out to be a great decision because we saw so much of the city we wouldn’t have even know to look for. Plus the tour guides were excellent, providing information on the history, architecture, popular culture, economics, arts, etc of New York City. A nice thing about tours buses like this (other cities have them too) is that you can get on and off as much as you want, which we did.

We had a wonderful time but like most Americans our minds weren’t ever very far away from what was happening along the Gulf Coast. These thoughts kept creeping in. I found myself thinking about how I would have faced the challenges the people I’ve seen on television and in the newspaper have faced. I’m not sure I would have done well.

At one point on a tour bus loop, the bus stayed for a longer-than-expected time at one of the stops. We were on the upper level of the bus, not in any shade. The sun was full and hot. We had started out the morning with two water bottles full of water but now were down to only half inch of water in one of the bottles. The heat and the inability to freely gulp cold water made us a bit uncomfortable. As the sweat dripped down my face I thought of the people on the rooftops in New Orleans who had been there for days in the blazing sun and who would have been overjoyed with my half inch of water to savor. Couldn’t I last at least another hour?

One of the tour guides told us that there were more than 200 Starbuck’s in Manhattan and that this was a good thing. “The reason this is a good thing,” he said, “is that each of them has a clean public restroom that you can use without buying a cup of coffee. And that’s a good thing!” We paid attention to that valuable bit of information. Later in the day and after maneuvering ourselves through a large crowded area off of Broadway we were relieved to see the familiar Starbuck’s sign and to utilize their generous public offering. In doing so, however, I thought about the people in the Superdome and Convention center with the lack of working restrooms. Could I have handled that?

Our last tour loop was the nightime tour, which went through parts of downtown and Brooklyn after dark. The last stop was Times Square where everybody had to get off. From there we walked back to our train. For the first block or two the crowd was thick. People were streaming out of the theatres and restaurants and squeezing together on the sidewalks. I thought about the crowds of hurricane refugees moving together to destinations not of their choosing, leaving their homes behind, heading to where they didn’t want to go. I, on the other hand, was heading to a train, which would take me to a fully functioning hotel, which housed my car, which would eventually take me back to my high-and-dry house in the Midwest. By that time in Times Square, however, I was so tired from being a tourist for a day--riding buses, shopping for souvenirs, eating at neat restaurants--that after walking the ten blocks or so to Grand Central Station I sank into my seat on the train just in the nick of time, avoiding exhaustive collapse. From where would I have pulled the strength to be a hurricane survivor or a first responder or rescuer or Red Cross worker or Charity Hospital doctor or worried loved one?