Lessing and more
The weather in Houston has been exceptionally agreeable of late. It took the Labor Day clue and is now transitioning into fall. I know it’s a cruel joke because Texas summers last well into October, sometimes November and December and January. Texas can’t fool me, but it can get my hopes up.
It is fall in Europe though, and this will be the first time I’ve been to Europe this time of year. Previous trips have always been April-May-July. This will be the first time I’ve gone to Germany. I am super excited about that, although most of what I know about Berlin comes from books like Voluptous Panic, which probably ain’t realistic these days. I am excited to be greeted by my husband in the airport and to spend the next three weeks showing him all the places I visited when I was in school.
I keep thinking it’s been a long time since my last trip to Europe but it was only two years ago. It has been almost a decade since I was last in Paris or London, not counting the airports. I turned 20 in London during a time when I was poorer than I’ve ever been in my life and celebrated with half-price tickets to see “The Graduate” starring a naked, husky-voiced, hot Kathleen Turner.
I am re-learning my French accent with handy pod-classes. I am packing light, bringing a small bag, not nearly enough space for three weeks of travel. I’ve been looking for the perfect book, one book, that will satisfy me over during the trip. In May of 2007 I was staying at a tiny deserted resort in El Nido, Philippines, when I picked up a book called Incognito Street: How Travel Made Me A Writer in the resort’s meager hodge-podge library
I think travel guides and writing guides are kinda hokey, but Incognito Street was a pleasant surprise. The book was far better than it’s genre implied, and I was consumed with author Barbara Sjoholm’s burgeoning feminism and her growing identity as a writer. By the end of the trip I had amassed a pretty long, scribbled list of the numerous references she makes throughout the book to novels, movies, writers, feminists and other influences.
One of the books that moved her most was “The Golden Notebook.” So several months later, while plumbing the shelves at the largest used English-language bookstore in Korea, I was pleased to find a copy of Doris Lessing’s most famous work. I recognized the name immediately from the list I’d made before, and immediately bought the copy, in spite of the fact that it was pretty worn.
I haven’t read it yet but it seems like the perfect book to take on this trip, taking into account current events and travel themes. Plus it’s nice and thick.
Only a few months after my purchase, Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. This movie is older than dirt but I’m posting it anyway because of her adorably cranky acceptance speech.
I’m leaving my computer at home and won’t be online much while I’m away. Tomorrow morning before boarding the plane I’m gonna do a little dance to keep Ike away from Houston. Trip pictures and anecdotes will be posted sometime after the 30th. Later, gators.
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