Just back from a conference in Kansas--on the way there and the way back, I read All the Light We Cannot See. I lugged this hardback on the plane because I am going to see Anthony Doer speak in Seattle next month and I thought I'd best read his work first. What luminous, tactile writing. Reading it was like stuffing my pockets full of smooth stones from the beach as I walk (something I've done quite often here). I sped through the book far too quickly, I suppose, because not only is the writing beautiful but the plot keeps you in such suspense, and the chapters are so pleasingly bite-sized, I couldn't put the book down until the Fasten Seatbelt sign switched off. I even read through the considerable turbulence, holding the book out in front of me as we bounced through the clouds.
We landed in Oklahoma City and drove through the sprawling metropolis into the country, crisscrossed by red dirt roads and thick wind-blocks of mesquite trees. It was like visiting an underfunded Houston, really--both are oil cities. Kansas felt refreshing with its clean fields and scrubby cornstalks. Friends University in Wichita boasted a fairytale-ish main building built of limestone and rambling, broad sidewalks with tall trees on either side that smelled wonderful, especially after the gullywasher that we ran through the first night of our conference. On Friday morning we found bananas perched all over campus, tucked into trees and drains and balanced on stairwells by the Friends University Banana Bandit. My sister joked that this is how Quakers play practical jokes--leave food out for the hungry. I ate a banana snatched from a glossy black sculpture and it was delicious.
I'm not quite unpacked but I left the suitcase open for a trip to Missoula, MT, one of our most favorite places on earth, where we'll visit with my wee goddaughter and our dear friends. I'll also get to visit MT Public Radio to read Apple Day on the fantastic show, The Pea Green Boat. Merry and I used to listen to the show ten years ago and now I get to visit and talk about children's writing! I am excited. I'll let you all know how to access the show when I find out.
Fall is golden and buttery and apple-studded here and smells of wind and leaves and feels like chrysanthemum petals, soft, smooth and earthy. Charley is going mad for all the fat squirrels in the backyard and I am steadily working my way through a crate of apples--not saucing or baking, just eating the lot because they are so crisp, so sweet, like sunshine.
Comments