I had to visit San Diego this weekend and used the train trip to devour much reading. There is something so delightful about reading on the train as scenery passes out the window. As children whine for more Cheerios three seats behind me. As someone's cell-phone rings repeatedly, squawking out ringtone-botched versions of popular tunes. The three hour trip affords me six hours total - there and back. Six hours of reading is not a lot. Yet somehow, on the train, six hours feels like twelve. I get through whole volumes, complete novels. I never bring enough.
On this occasion, I finished Richard Wirick's 100 Postcards from Siberia. This is a subtle book - the weight accumulates after 100 pages or so and you begin to get a sense of the landscape, the people, the customs Wirick details. Each chapter is a "postcard", touching ever-so-briefly on an aspect of culture, on a given moment, on a certain Siberian scene. Cold and rural Siberia offered such an odd and wonderful juxtaposition to the sunny beach scenes that rolled past my window.
I also devoured The Canon by Natalie Angier. What a marvelous writer, that Angier! I found myself not only loving the science she was sharing, but the spirit in which she was sharing it. The way in which her sentences jumped enthusiastically off the page. The spring in her paragraphs' steps. I rarely go in for non-fiction - and never science-y bits. Yet Angier's enthusiasm for science and her convincing arguments about the importance science must play in our society if we are to progress are infectious. I made mental lists of microscopes to buy, moon-viewing schedules to adhere to, daily observations to make and not forget.
The cumulative effect of these two books - one so different from another and yet now bound by the order in which I read them and the context in which I read them - plus a very mellow but prolonged visit to already-mellow San Diego has inspired me to slow down a bit. Observe my moments carefully. Extend them where I can. As such, I'm not keen to madly read and post and read and post today. A quiet enjoyment of the world around me is on the schedule today, instead of the usual madness. I'm sure it will return soon enough...
