Reading and Ritual
I’m back from a longer-than-intended absence from writing that included finally getting COVID while in NYC (where I managed to get my hair re-dyed, see some friends, and get to a few museums before spending most of the trip quarantined and feeling pretty crappy).
That absence also encompassed one of my favorite annual rituals: an August retreat up to Moosehead Lake in northern Maine, where my parents have rented a cabin every summer for the last 20 years. I go up for as long as my schedule will allow, and apart from 2020, when I was in COVID lockdown in Colorado, I haven’t missed a year.
A key feature of this retreat that I look forward to immensely is that, no matter how long I’m there, it’s a time of rest and disconnection from technology. I delete my social media apps and turn on an out-of-office email reply. The places we rent have never had high speed internet. Until this year, there was barely enough cell phone reception to make a call, either. We used to bring a physical modem to plug into the phone line, but mostly, a few times a week, we drive 20 minutes south to the nearest town with amenities and use the wifi at the public library (shout out to Shaw Library in Greenville, ME).
Public libraries are a major benefactor of this annual trip, because the other part of my ritual is that I basically do nothing but read while I’m up there. Literally. There is some dog-walking and some bits and pieces of work, but all the water sports and hiking that so many people go to that region to accomplish… yeah… I’m not those people.
I start this ritual trip every year with a library haul from whichever local library I’m living near. This year’s stash came mostly from the Concord Free Public Library, where, between me and my parents, our holds were so many, they required their own shelf (the four stacks on the bottom shelf in this photo are all for me and my family). I bring my ereader and reserve some ebooks, too (love to the Libby app and the assorted library systems in multiple states who grant me access to their digital collections), but I’m That Girl who really loves the multisensory experience of reading physical books when I have the choice.
I’ve been a reader like this my whole life. I’ve always loved to fidget with pages. I relish the changing weight of a book in my hand as I make my way through it and the heaviness transfers from right hand to left. I pay attention to the typefaces and the white space of the page layouts (I always read those “About this font” sections at the backs of books), to where on the white-ivory-eggshell-ecru-cream spectrum the paper fits. I’m such an inveterate sniffer of books that I put it on the application for my teenage first job at that very same Concord Public Library. So yes, I care about whether I’m reading something with the sharp acrid whiff of a new mass-market paperback or the deep umami-rich organic sweetness of an older hardback that’s traveled on and off library shelves for decades.
I love books. You get it.
This year, I picked up my reserved haul and toted them up to the cabin where I would proceed to get through 15 of them in my three weeks at the lake. Before the reading actually begins, though, the next part of the ritual is to organize the books when we get to the house. “Making the library” is always one of my first tasks when I get to the cabin, and it’s what makes me feel like I’ve settled in for the literary long-haul.
I added a component to my reading retreat ritual this year, which was that after I finished each book, I made a little sketch of it. It turned into a delightful little way to draw a close to my time with each book, and I found them so satisfying to make and to look at that I’m now planning to keep up the practice as I keep on reading.
Creative constraints are always my jam, so the limits for these sketches were:
same 8x9 grid square size
limited palette of imprecise markers
no sketching it out beforehand
As you can see, I’m a pretty eclectic reader, which should surprise approximately no one who knows me. I pick up what feels right to read next, based on an intuitive sense of where my heart and mind are at coming out of the previous book. When I’m on a roll, I get through about a book a day.
And though I’m not one for writing book reviews (though my mother is), I thought I’d share a bite-size summary (in my beloved haiku format—creative constraints, again) of what I read on my summer vacation this year.
The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
Shipwrecks, time travel.
Pulley’s beautiful writing
Lives in the subtext
Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen E. Kirby
Patriarchy sucks.
These subtle feminist tales
Offer takes on how
The Power of Ritual by Casper ter Kuile
Make things in your life
Feel special. Your attention
Is a gift you have
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Video gaming
As philosophy and art
And a road through life
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
When you don’t grow old
How do you find a purpose
As you live through years?
The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall
Slip away sideways
From the antebellum South’s
False nostalgic praise
The Poet’s House by Jean Thompson
Creative artists,
Inspiring and annoying
By turns. As they do
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialist World by David Epstein
Success comes to those
Who can flex and learn new things
In eclectic ways
Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz
Civilizations
Variously fade in this
Oddly hopeful read
Fuzz by Mary Roach
People meet nature
And conflicting laws apply
In surprising ways
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Mystery detailed
An ode to the libraries
One and all of them
Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller
Humans love control
So much they sometimes force it.
Eugenics is bad
What White People Can Do Next by Emma Dabiri
White folks’ allyship
Must shift to coalition.
Race affects us too
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
A long, nuanced time
Spent with the fathers of the
French Revolution
Passing by Nella Larsen
Happiness is rare
No matter what truth you live
Or what you may hide
And now I’m back home, and turning my replenished fall energies toward community building and connection. I’ll be leading a Creative Mornings workshop (details to be announced as soon as they’re firmed up), and I’m cooking up some professional/personal development workshop and retreat opportunities that I look forward to sharing and that I hope will offer inspiration in times when that’s hard to come by.
One thing I’ve realized from my extended time away from social media is that I don’t want to be relying on it as a primary mode of communication with the world. To that end, I’m experimenting with putting this post out into the world in new ways. I hope it’s a welcome missive wherever you’re encountering it.
Creative Prompt Coda:
(inspired by my book sketching project and by Casper ter Kuile’s The Power of Ritual)
Pick one of your preexisting daily habits and turn it into a ritual. You might do this by adding an element to it, taking a slower and more deliberate approach to it, giving it more of your attention, putting words to it if it’s physical or movements to it if it’s verbal.
Values Resource Rec:
(in which I add a recommendation of something to check out that’s connected to my core values of TRANSPARENCY, VULNERABILITY, and COLLECTIVITY)
Money Health Collective: building wealth and wellbeing for everyone
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