Feeding the mind and body

Two separate (and at first glance insignificant) articles in the NYT caused me to sit back and reflect this morning: the back-page essay of the Travel Section (on reading multiple books during vacations) and the Food piece in the Magazine. What do they have in common? Both pieces hit below my guilt belt.

The first describes a family that travels everywhere with a suitcase full of books. I have to admit that I am the opposite – I read the least number of novels when I am on a trip. A day begins early for me – almost always at sunrise – and it ends with a late late dinner. True, in recent months I have traveled with my computer and I have found time to blog often late into the night, but by then, typically I am in a dazed stupor brought on by a bursting-at-the-seams day of walking, viewing and eating. It’s not a conducive state for picking up a Russian tragedy, for example. [The Hartmanns – the family that is the subject of the NYT article – must have a lackluster sightseeing agenda and certainly they cannot be drinking wine with dinner or they’d be equally zonked at the end of the day. It is not possible to pick up Anna Karenina after a three hour Italian dinner that ends at midnight.]

Do I at least read on long flights? Rarely. Most people regard this as somewhat bizarre, but during periods of time suspended in the air I frequently just sit and think. Only during solitary walks do I ever have such beautiful chunks of thinking time. On my last overseas flight, the passenger next to me was nearing the end of his copy of Ulysses. I, on the other hand, was on page 50 of a rather good novel that I had begun on the outbound flight, but I quickly put it down because I realized it was cutting into my thinking time.

This explanation for my poor reading habits during travel does not diminish pangs of guilt for being so illiterate during periods of what is essentially “free time.” I think I should be plowing through a book or two per day, just like the NYT Hartmann family.

As to the article on food – specifically on creating one’s own version of the French Salade Composee (which is a salad that is good enough to serve as a meal) – I am impressed. I have been struggling to come up with ideas on how to make terrific meals this year without resorting to the frozen foods section of the local grocery store and here I have it: bingo! An artfully created salad with yummy tuna, good quality olive oil, and a number of compatible, seasonal vegetables. Why didn’t I think of that myself?

Oh the merits of reading the Sunday Times! In a creative year of “accomplishing something” (see post below), I am certainly keen on the idea of moving around town (though not on a trip to distant places – never then) with a suitcase full of books (you never know when a moment to read will arise) and ending each day with a salade composee.

[I also have a few projects in mind for the year, but these will not be revealed until (unless?) they are accomplished.]