IF I'M HERE...CAN I ALSO BE THERE?

Here's a question I never thought to ask myself:  "When you are traveling, is it OK to read for pleasure?"  Like, wow.  When I am traveling, it never occurs to me NOT to read, for pleasure or any other reason.  Like a tourist brochure, local newspaper, or menu.  Whatever.  But most especially a novel or memoir or the latest non-fiction "fix me" tome.

But I get what my friend meant when she posed this question to herself and struggled with the answer.  And decided to survey her friends.  Those of us who are avid readers never leave home without a book in our bag, our car, or clutched in our hand.  For me a book is a lifeline, a safety blanket, a friend.  I sort of panic when I don't have something to read at the ready.  But she wondered if we are truly present on our travels, truly taking in all that surrounds us, when we are simultaneously (or intermittently) transported elsewhere inside the pages of a book.  Are we cheating ourselves of the full experience of our trip when we mentally escape into other settings as we read?

So, I thought about this question on my recent trip to Hawai'i.  I read 9 books and a few magazines and the occasional newspaper.  I should point out, these are not difficult reads.  These are beach reads, right?  Easy, breezy, fun, interesting, perhaps thought-provoking or poignant, but not rocket science.  For quite some time I've been enamored of memoir.  I LOVE to read about real people and what happened to them, what they learned; to discover if they are funny or insightful; hear about where they went and what they did there....it's probably the voyeur in me.  Or the part of me who lives vicariously through the exploits of others doing those things I could never imagine (or want to do) in my own life.

I'm also really drawn to humor.  Clever, ironic humor.  I'm a sucker for dry wit, for shining a light on absurdity, for looking askew at those characters, places, and events that make us scratch our heads in wonder.  And then laugh.

So, here's the reading list from my recent trip:

Rebel Buddha -- Dzogchen Ponlop  (Tibet, US)
     Non-fiction exploration of Western Buddhism (great book!)
Unfamiliar Fishes -- Sarah Vowell  (Hawai'i)
     Fascinating history of Hawai'i plus Sarah Vowell is really funny!
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim -- David Sedaris  (North Carolina)
     One of my favorite humor writers; laugh out loud funny.
Among Flowers - Jamaica Kincaid  (Nepal)
     A trek through Nepal to find indigenous seeds for planting back home.  Did not like this book (the writing was uneven, the author's attitude smacked of colonialism), but the descriptions of the trek were sort of interesting, if sketchy.  I did learn she gets up to pee outside the tent nightly--a recurring scene.
The Wordy Shipmates -- Sarah Vowell  (Massachusetts)
     Loved Unfamiliar Fishes so much, I went back for more Sarah and this history of the Puritans in Massachusetts.  Very entertaining history.  More Sarah!  More Sarah!  Her history books should be read in high school classes!
Sh*t My Dad Says -- Justin Halpern (San Diego)
     A sweet homage to a gruff and loving father -- from his very funny son.
Kitchen Confidential -- Anthony Bourdain  (New York)
     The book that started Bad Boy Bourdain on the road to infamy on No Reservations.  He's a jerk and I love him.  Plus who can resist a 'behind the scenes' look at restaurants and the cooking life therein?  (Don't order fish on Mondays...or eat almost anything on a Sunday Brunch buffet table).
Wild -- Cheryl Strayed  (The Pacific Crest Trail wilderness)
     She's young, irresponsible, flirting with drug addiction and decides with no forethought at all to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from Southern California to Washington.  She learns a lot.  I ended up liking her.
The Beginner's Goodbye -- Anne Tyler  (Baltimore)
     One of my favorite novelists takes on love, grief, and moving on in this story of a physically challenged man who lives fully in his heart ... and body.
The Wolf Gift -- Anne Rice  (a wolf den somewhere perhaps)
    I started this, but quit it.  I do like Anne Rice's crazy gothic/modern vampires and witches and this one I think is about werewolves, but the plane landed before I really cared about where she was going with the story.  Maybe some other time....

So.  Book reviews aside, it's obvious that while I was in Hawai'i I was also in Tibet, Nepal, Massachusetts, New York, San Diego, Raleigh, Baltimore.  Only one book I read was actually set in Hawai'i.  So, while I was on the beach of Kaua'i, I was also in all these other places.  Still, I relished the unhurried, lazy days of diving deeply into books I enjoyed -- letting the story, the setting, the author take me on a pleasure cruise while the palms swayed overhead and the waves lapped at the shoreline.

Is that OK?  Well, I think so.

At least, that's the view from here....©