#14: Gone Fishin’
If the whole of Europe screeches to a halt in August, then dammit so will I.
Indeed, I'm heading off on my own holidays, my first trip back home to the States in two years. I certainly didn’t intend to let so much time pass, but in my unsettled life of moving house and switching jobs and bouncing between countries, whole years can just slip away. As much as I crave stability, it eludes me, and I suppose if I’m really honest, I may be a little uncomfortable whenever I get too comfortable. Not all who wander are lost, etc, etc. Even now I am hatching my next round of plans to keep myself moving ever forward.
But for the last two weeks of August at least, I’m traveling directly into my comfort zone- home to Boston, and then speeding out of the harbor straight to spend a week in the happiest place on earth, Provincetown. Just thinking about it I can feel my breath steady and my shoulders melt away from my ears. There I’ll do what I've always done, summer after summer. I’ll rent a bike from Arnold’s, bob and weave through the relentless Commercial Street traffic, make my way along the sandy shoulder of 6A past Herring Cove and onto the winding path through the beach forest, until I reach the end of the world at Race Point. I’ll read and swim and stare into the sea all day, then head back into town for a beer and a shower. I’ll eat fried fish and clams and lobster rolls and Spiritus pizza slices and tomatoes and watermelon and ice cream.
I’ll do this every single day and be perfectly content, craving nothing more than the sameness of all of it.
I've been excitedly planning my summer reading list for months now, curating a precise selection to suit my every reading moment. Of course I have different reading moments. At any one time, I'm typically reading three or four things concurrently. For example, in the mornings when my mind is fresh and sharp, I read books on whatever it is I'm studying, like strategy, or behavior, or some kind of theory. Between meetings, I tend to punctuate my day with shorter bursts of reading- internet stuff, Medium articles, and the heaps of other newsletters I subscribe to. And for my entire life, I've read novels- usually literary fiction, before bed. This isn't even counting any bonus reading, like trash-n-fash mags while getting pedicures, or losing myself in a New Yorker on a long commute. Oh! And cookbooks. Those are for Saturday mornings with tea.
It's actually insane that I'm not, nor have I ever been a member of a bookclub. I always love it when friends ask for book recommendations on Facebook, I enjoy nothing more than a juicy book chat. As with music, I'd like to write more, or at least share more about what I'm reading. So here ya go, folks. Without further adieu, here's my vacation reading list.
For reading on the flight over
What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories: Laura Shapiro
Admittedly I'm not super keen to read about Eva Braun's appetite for champagne whilst spending her last days in the bunker with Hitler and cronies, but former Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown's dietary proclivities should reveal a lot about her magazine's devastating effect on decades of body consciousness. So, you know, a light read. (I'll probably watch some terrible romcoms to offset this.)
For morning "study"
To help with developing content for my coaching practice, I've been devouring loads of the pop wisdom in the spaces of habit and behavior design plus career and personal development. To be honest, I've always read a lot of this stuff because the worlds of social and cognitive science heavily inform my design work. Topping off my current pile are two somewhat polarized perspectives on communication. First is Brené Brown's seminal work on vulnerability, Daring Greatly. On the flipside is Radical Candor, a perspective on leadership from former Google exec Kim Scott that depends on the principles of Caring Personally while Challenging Directly. Keep your Girlboss BS, this is news I can use.
For beach reads
Between the soothing sounds of the sea and zoned-out people watching, I can't commit my brain to taking in any really deep reading while sunning myself. In addition to a good pile of mags (hello September issues!) and a can of Pringles, I'll be sneaking in some chic-lit. Ain't no shame. But trashy bodice-rippers are not my style. I like a good bit of sharp-witted snark, so I'm looking forward to Dawn O'Porter's The Cows, about the intertwined lives of some judgy women. Like SATC, but in words! Since I guarantee I'll breeze through that, I'm also planning to re-read Why Not Me, by Mindy Kaling. Yes, I did say re-read. Mindy is a brilliant and thoughtful writer, and both of her books are fantastic additions to the Bossypants canon of whipsmart showbiz ladies. FYI, I also just re-read Amy Poehler's Yes Please, which is a tremendously inspirational book in which I did a lot of underlining.
For afternoon reads on the porch
Oh what to read after I come back from reading on the beach?! I've got just the thing. I've been dying to dive headfirst into a pool of Rebecca Solnit's writing for months, and finally now is the time. It was genuinely hard to decide where to start, but with my current mood of frustration with rampant bropropriation, Men Explain Things to Me seemed like just the right place.
For bedtime reading
Having struggled to get through George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo (maybe it works better as an audiobook? I just don't get the appeal), I've moved on to Catherine Lacey's The Answers, a story with the properly bizarre premise of one woman's role in an experiment to build the perfect romantic relationship. When I finish that, I'll be picking up The Idiot, (no, not the Dostoyevsky). Quite simply that Elif Bautman's story is set amongst Harvard freshman in 1995 was enough of a draw for me, remembering my own journey that started just over the river in Boston at the same time.