I like meditative walks, walks that allow thoughts to surface. Walking with Sophie—when she plods slowly along without too many stops—can be very satisfying.
Now that we’ve entered the cooling season, she’s more willing to take an evening walk around the block, and thoughts of my blog crept in. The hodge-podge of ideas left me wondering how I could find a unifying theme. I like a theme, it makes me feel like I’m chatting with a purpose, somehow.
Because I’m only two weeks back from a cruise, I am connecting with that break from my ordinary life, and how it is bringing change.
Our ship had a library and we had plenty of time for reading. At home I might gulp down a light novel, but nonfiction reading—like my Scientific American issues—often wait a long time for me to finish them.
In the ship’s library I discovered, among the books donated by previous passengers, The Accidental President; Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World, by A. J. Baime (2017). It was exactly the book I hadn’t known I wanted to read.
Baime brings those first four months following FDR’s death into four-dimensional clarity and complexity, amazing me with how much happened in that short time, to be handled by a former VP who hadn’t been brought up to speed on anything—certainly not the bomb! I spend four or five days reading and interrupting my sister’s reading with comments. Truman, with no college degree but the ability to work extremely hard, saw the United Nations take shape, learned about the atomic bomb, dealt with world leaders, the origins of the cold war, and so much more. Then I left the book behind for the next passenger to discover.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus was recommended to us by our table mates on the cruise. Back home, my sister read it first. I had placed a hold on an ebook copy, but her comments over the phone pushed me to grab the more readily available print edition. Then I couldn’t put it down. Well, I had to put it down several times but sure didn’t want to! I finished it that same day, laughing out loud when I least expected to be amused.
On the garden front, I came home to find more and larger green tomatoes than grew in the spring, and more eggplants—small but prolific. Plus, my solitary jalapeno plant has finally begun fruiting.
Next week, I’ll continue with Remnants of a Cruise—Exercise.
What are you reading?
Kate Harrington 