Friday, March 18, 2005

 

I’m so ready for some deep reading (no theology, politics – those nerves have been plucked). “Out of Africa” comes to mind. Something soft and warm and challengingly unchallenging. I haven’t sunk my teeth into a good long read in awhile. Sure there was an hour or two with William Trevor last weekend, and that was healing, but I have greater need for reading than I’ve been giving it. And certainly I can’t go Mon-Fri like I did this week without reading. Where do the nights go? I don’t know, they gets squirreled away quick enough.

Got to thinking about my past. I’m amazed at how I’ve changed from my Thoreau days when I felt no responsibility. The results of course are the same – I’m little use to anybody – but now I’ve got the guilt. Yea. Ach, well, Elvis is dead and I don’t feel so good myself.

I've been remembering the sweet times at Sanibel in '03 for some reason. Though the beach was cool, there was time spent rhapsodizing on the sun deck reading Russell Kirk. Reminds me of youthful outings at the old Benninghoffen pool in Hamilton and the sun deck of the old place where there was the sun batter’d us and the quiet lulled us. The beach at Sanibel was too windy, the gulls too gully, and walkers too walky. There was also something special about the moment on the porch beside the shade tree overlooking the pool. Sometimes a vacation is worth it for the ten minutes it imprints on your memory.

I wonder how important books are to a vacation. Is it the Kirk book that “made” the ’03 Sanibel trip and the Pearce Oscar Wilde bio that made Hilton Head ’04? Perhaps. But I do remember some warmth coming off that Sixth Pence book that gave a gilt edge to the cruise.

The problem with January vacations in general is they put you behind the black ball. You’re behind the curve vacationally-speaking. You become stingy through February, thru March and even into April and May. It’s only June, July & August that you let the floodgates open. But Feb-May is a burdensomely long stretch attended, at least in February, by meager light levels and cold temps.

Whine, I'll serve no whine...as it's said of the military grunts in Lipsky's "Four Years at West Point": "they're only happy when they're complaining".

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