I always like to spend part of the day outside, whatever the weather. I like to walk, I like to breath fresh air rather than the stale air of the house. I’m fortunate that there’s a large park near my home, and that Toronto has lots of trees and shade on its streets, so nature is always part of my experience of the outdoors.
I find making time to go outside leads to more thinking, more opportunity to work something through, whether a poem, or a disagreement with my wife. It allows a mental rest where all I have to do is walk, look and listen. I don’t play music on earphones when I’m outside, I want to hear and experience everything around me.
Which brings me to the inevitable exception — I prefer to be indoors when the weather is inclement. I still go out but I do not doddle, nor take the longest most circuitous route. I go out and return, often to say to myself then, “What now?”
If the answer is not forthcoming, I have my failsafe fallback plan: read.
Nothing suits reading more than a well-lit warm and cozy nook in which to shelter from the storm, all while diving into whatever interests or pleases you. I have read histories and I have read space opera romances, and I’m sure both pleased me, almost equally. I have to admit fiction is for days off, while all other reading is for learning, which attracts me more. Unless it’s extra dark and cold outside. Or the wind’s too strong. Perhaps the sun’s too bright. In which case, fiction is the remedy.
I should mention, the beach is an exception that proves the rule in cases not excepted. (I had to do a bit of research into that one, tip of the hat to Cicero.) It’s almost the perfect reading environment as it is, at once, outside, well-lit, warm and cozy. This of course depends on the use of an excellent beach umbrella.
But a perfect days’ reading for the beach cannot be beat. I always have a notebook and pencils, coloured as well as lead, poetry, a biography or history of some sort. Sometimes a cookbook. Then a book of photography, or a graphic novel. If you prefer, a comic book. As well, a book of short stories, or a great bulk of a book, usually glamourous adventure in the far flung future.
For some reason, the sheer impossibility of most ’science fiction’ brings out a wonderful thread of commentary and satire that I love. One can point to Johnathan Swift, or Margaret Atwood as two practitioners of the fantastic tale that allows much to be said about today. But I have a soft spot for Phillip K. Dick as a writer far more interested in his social observations, rather than a well made story. When it comes to plot, deus ex machina reigns supreme for Dick.
My favourite reading place will always be a memory, now that it’s gone. When I was a child, I would spend all summer at my grandparent’s cottage in Muskoka. The hundreds of fresh water lakes were well populated in the summer, with people living around these small jewels in shacks all the way to palaces.
Our cottage was built by my grandfather, who was an engineer, so it was sturdy and level. What made it special was the walls were made of golden Number One pine, which you can no longer get unless you’re willing to spend a small fortune, and it had pocket slide windows all round (with screens, you do not live with the bugs in Muskoka), and these could be opened or closed, to allow all or some of the breeze to blow through the cabin, so that, on the best of days, it was as if the outside was inside, it was just more comfortable inside, in a living room with three perfect couches for lounging in to read.
As well, there was the large stone fireplace, the first thing built, which the cottage then surrounded. On days when it was cold and wet, a fire would be started, and that made the inside seem more special, more perfect for enjoying a good read. The sounds and smell of a wood fire perfectly twin with reading for me.
Most of the time, I was outside, swimming, canoeing, hiking, collecting wild berries for my grandmother to cook. (Very few of the berries collected made it back. Somehow, my grandmother had a backup supply of either blueberries or raspberries to supplement my harvest.)
But every day, there had to be reading. My local library made a special dispensation for me (see Cicero above). I was allowed to take more than three books out at one time, and keep them for an extra week, so four weeks. Consequently, I would arrive at my grandparents cottage with a cardboard box filled with books, which I would read at an alarming rate, alarming because I was afraid I would run out before my parents came to visit, and bring me new books from the library and take the old books back.
But when I did finish the library books too soon, I would read the old paperbacks at the cottage. I read Hoyle’s Rules of Cards, half a Thesaurus, three books on native wild birds, anything I could lay my hands on. I discovered I did not like Agatha Christie and Damon Runyan and William Saroyan were quite delightful, if somewhat old-fashioned.
Today, it’s a late summer day. The clouds are grey, it’s raining on and off, which the garden very much needs, and now that this is written. I shall settle into my reading chair, turn on the light, and read all afternoon. An almost perfect day.
Any day is a good day to read.