Cathy Zane's Blog, page 8

A traveling we will go! *

Last time, I talked about the confidence I gleaned from strong female characters like Cara Black’s Aimee Leduc. Another factor that draws me to Black’s novels is that the action is set in Paris. I’ve never been to Paris, but the maps, landmarks, and landscapes that Black portrays call to me, begging me to visit. This brings me to another thing I love about books: being introduced to new places and feeling compelled to travel.

Other than trips to see relatives, my family never traveled. When I was sixteen, I read James Michener’s book, The Drifters. I hadn’t thought about it for years until I started writing this blog, but I realize it was one of the few books in my life that really got under my skin and stayed with me. It tapped into a part of me that wanted to leave home and see more of the world. The idea of traveling to Spain, Portugal, France and beyond was exhilarating. But fear, and my father, would never have let me do that.

So, I pushed aside ideas of travel until college when I accepted an invitation from a friend to spend the summer with her family in Northern California. That summer profoundly changed my life’s direction. I returned to school in love with San Francisco and determined to move there. Anticipating my father’s disapproval, I changed my major to nursing, a very marketable profession. I knew he would cut me off financially and I needed to be able to support myself. And then I boldly moved across the county a week after graduation.

Boldly might seem hyperbolic, but you need to understand; I was a shy and fearful child who grew into an anxious but determined adult. I didn’t want fear to hold me back. I wanted to “feel the fear and do it anyway.” After my move to California I continued to dream of foreign travel, but life intervened: work, limited vacation time, financial constraints, marriage and children. Travel receded into the background.

Then I found myself in my fifties, a divorced empty nester, and other than one trip to Mexico and several to Canada, I had never traveled outside of the United States. I’d never even had a passport. When my son decided to spend a semester abroad in Tanzania and needed a passport, I applied for one myself. The seed for travel that had been planted in my teens started to blossom. I’d raised my sons, was financially secure and had plenty of vacation time. What was my excuse?

I didn’t really need to ask the question; fear of traveling alone was the obvious answer. Then in the summer of 2014, my son, who by then had a passport full of stamps from nearly a dozen different countries, took me to London for my birthday. I was overwhelmed. It was a big city and the Underground was intimidating. But my son wasn’t fazed. His experiences had made him a confident and adept traveler. And I took note. By the end of our trip, I felt like a pro and was thirsty for more.

But the fear of going completely solo was still there. As much as some other countries were higher on my “bucket list,” I decided to go to Switzerland to visit a friend. I would be on my own during the days, but I would have a home base to return to each night. So, after a successful relationship with Rick Steve’s in London, I got his Switzerland guide and started planning.

Concerned about language, I reviewed my basic French and how to say I didn’t speak German, but I needn’t have worried. English was widely spoken and people were friendly and helpful. I even had some wonderful conversations with fellow travelers. I shared a table at a lakeside café in Geneva with a woman whose English was about as good as my French, but we muddled along. And then there was the couple from Argentina on a train where Spanish was our only shared language.

I walked the narrow streets of old towns, visited modern museums and medieval castles, sampled chocolate at Maison Cailler, indulged in Gruyere cheese and took a boat ride on Lake Geneva. And I rode the trains, which more than lived up to my romantic expectations. The countryside was beautiful, the ride comfortable and the drone relaxing. There was something nostalgic about the trains and the stations and I found myself imagining earlier times when they were the primary means of travel.

Switzerland is a beautiful country and I enjoyed my time there. I now dream of Spain and Italy. Will I go solo? I might. Sharing the experience is still my preference. But I now know I can also go it alone, meet people along the way and have a different kind of fun than I would traveling with someone. And, after all, wasn’t that some of the appeal of Michener’s novel so many years ago?

Has a book’s setting ever made you want to travel there? Did you go?

*Author note: An edited version of this blog appeared as a column in the Marin Independent Journal on June 27, 2017.

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Who Remembers Trixie Belden?

Welcome back! I’m glad you are joining me again. In case it wasn’t clear enough after my first blog, I am a certifiable book nerd. I love reading, writing and talking about books. Nothing gives me more pleasure. The idea of looking back at my life through the lens of books that I’ve read seems both exciting and daunting. I have read so many books, and I know I will remember only a small percentage of them. I wish I’d kept a list. If I were a teacher, this would be my suggestion to my students: Buy a nice journal and write down each book you read. And start now.

Today, I want to go back to those 67 books that I read during my sixth-grade year. My guess is that a fair number of them were mysteries. I loved mysteries. The path from the front door of my childhood public library to the mystery section is forever etched in my memory. I’m sure I read most, if not all, of the books there! This childhood passion most likely stemmed from my need to make sense of the chaos that was my life; if I could just find the missing clue, I’d be able to right the sinking ship. Or at least I could understand why things had gone so wrong and find a life boat.

But it was also fun. From a young age, probably due to both the situation in which I found myself and my innate biology, I loved to problem-solve. I wanted to understand and figure things out, to see how things fit together, and to take the clues and solve the puzzle. So, any book that kept me guessing and challenged me to beat the author to the punch was high on my list.

I read from all the classic mystery series such as Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. But Trixie Belden was my favorite. She was bold, impulsive and daring—all the things that I wasn’t. I was much more like her friend Honey, a good girl who was sensitive, anxious and hesitant. Or as Trixie would say, a “fraidy-cat!” But Honey grew and changed with Trixie’s influence. It gave me hope that I could change, too. I could learn to be less afraid, stronger, bolder.

Thinking back, I realize Trixie was the first in a long string of literary examples of strong, independent protagonists that helped me break out of my fearful shell and become more confident in myself and my abilities. This is one example of Laurence Cosse’s certainty (see Blog #1: Calling all bibliophiles) that novels are important; they teach us and prepare us for life.

I’m still drawn to strong female protagonists today. In the realm of mystery series, Cara Black’s Aimee Leduc is one of my current favorites. While being very different characters, Aimee and Trixie share some similar traits, both being strong, daring and at times fearless to the point of self-destruction. They are both determined and don’t let anything or anyone stand in their way.

I love remembering Trixie’s bold character and appreciate that she made a difference to my young self. So, what about you? Do you have a childhood protagonist that inspired you?

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Calling All Bibliophiles

Welcome! If you’ve arrived here, you probably have this in common with me: I LOVE BOOKS. Real flesh and blood printed books. I mean, I love my Kindle, don’t get me wrong. It’s my first choice for middle-of-the-night reading or airline travel. But there’s something about holding a print book—the feel of the paper, the smell, the turning of pages. Nostalgia maybe. I don’t know. But I know I love books that I can hold in my hands. And I love libraries and bookstores where I can lose myself for hours.

I live to read. Besides writing, it’s my favorite thing to do. “Her nose is always in a book” has been true about me since before I can remember. My sixth-grade teacher recorded the number of books we read on our quarterly report card. I read 67 books that school year! Reading was my escape from a chaotic childhood, a safe haven where I could be transported to better times. I knew, even then, that reading was helping me see and learn about life outside my reality. It was helping me dream of something more.

Many years later I would encounter a similar sentiment in A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé. The full quote, at the top of page 150, is one of my favorite passages of all time.  I will share an excerpt with you here:

“My grandfather left me a great deal more – a passion for literature and something additional, fundamental: the conviction that literature is important….Novels don’t contain only exceptional situations, life or death choices, or major ordeals; there are also everyday difficulties, temptations, ordinary disappointments; and, in response, every human attitude, every type of behavior, from the finest to the most wretched….There are grown-ups who will say no, that literature is not life, that novels teach you nothing. They are wrong. Literature informs, instructs, it prepares you for life.”

For me, it isn’t just about living to read; it’s about reading to live. As Cossé so eloquently described, books have shaped me and helped me build a life. They’ve never abandoned me. They’ve been my one and only constant companion in life and continue to inform and instruct as well as entertain me.

As any avid reader knows, there are certain books that elicit feelings that can’t be fully articulated. They help us understand life or ourselves in some new way. That is what I would like to explore in this blog. I’d like to remember and share with you some of the books that have entertained, moved and inspired me. My list of favorites includes great works of literature as well as fun beach reads. I’ve also found many non-fiction books to be educational, supportive and inspirational. So, any and all genres may find their way into these columns (with the likely exception of horror. The nightmares just aren’t’ worth it!).

There are so many wonderful books out there. Clearly no one could ever hope to read more than a small percentage of them. But there may be some books I discuss here that you want to check out. And you may have favorites of your own that you want to share with me.

I’m curious to see where this goes. I imagine I will reminisce, muse and meander my way through a wide variety of books, unearthing memoires and making connections that hadn’t occurred to me before. I think it will be a fun and interesting journey for me and I hope for you as well.

Will you join me?

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