The reading of a fine book is an uninterrupted dialogue in which the book speaks and our soul replies.
– Andre Maurois
Picture this: a full cup of warm coffee, a clear sky with the sun shining, a cool breeze, and the gentle sound waves splashing up on the rocks. I cannot imagine a better place to get lost in the pages of a book.
My stepmother’s family owns a camp (also known as a cottage or cabin, depending on where you’re from) in Northern Ontario. A couple of years after they began dating, when things had gotten pretty serious, my husband (then boyfriend) and I were invited to spend a few weeks there. I had been to a cottage only twice before, both times as a child, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But when I arrived, I immediately fell in love. The family camp is on the tip of a small remote lake surrounded by cliffs, trees, and somehow a sand beach. This camp had everything (except plumbing, so it was also my first of many times using an outhouse).
I’m not much of a sun worshiper, I’m not a strong swimmer, and I’d never been fishing (I still can’t believe I was invited), but I quickly discovered that my absolute favourite camp activity is curling up virtually anywhere with a book. And then another one. And another. The thing about Northern weather is that you get maaaybe four weeks of summer with the rest of the time being sweater weather at best. With the chill, you also get a fair number of impressive thunderstorms. Some years I can be outside reading on one of the docks (albeit in pants and a sweater) pretty much every day. Other years I spend my time curled up on the 1970s shag carpet with a book, watching the lightning over the lake. When I’m up there for two weeks I can easily polish off upwards of 10 books. If the weather is bad for several days, we sometimes even find ourselves reading the same books and holding an impromptu book club. Up at camp there are no demands. You are there to relax and unplug, and this year that is exactly what I did.
We weren’t supposed to be at camp this year. Because of the global pandemic we currently find ourselves in, pretty much everyone’s vacation plans were disrupted. I was supposed to travel to Scotland with my Father to celebrate his 60th birthday and my husband was planning to lead a school group through the battlefields of France and Belgium. As you can imagine, neither trip happened, so we found ourselves unexpectedly traveling northward.
It’s here that I recognize my immense privilege as someone with an income that has not been interrupted by the pandemic. I am also lucky to have sufficient vacation time to spend at a piece of property that my family is extremely fortunate to own. I have a disposable income, time, health, family, and a whole lot of books. This week I experienced all of it.
The beauty of camp is that most people who would regularly message me are either sitting in a chair on the dock next to me, in the lake in front of me, or making a quick trip to the fridge for a beer. Even when I had my phone with me I would only get the odd notification which I often couldn’t even hear over the sound of the waves, the call of the loons or, let’s be honest, the “buzz” of the beer (sorry to my friends for being an appalling texter!). It was the perfect time and place to read all the chapters of many books, completely uninterrupted.
Whenever I am asked to close my eyes and picture my happy place (you’d be surprised how much that comes up) I picture myself sitting on the dock, reclined in an anti-gravity chair, in the same old faded pink sweater I bring every year, reading a book. As I lie there the tension drains from my body. I often catch myself smiling at nothing in particular, just the sounds, sights, smells, and the feeling of the sun on my face and another world in my hands.
This week I read many chapters (and many books) completely uninterrupted. I ignored my phone, I ignored the outside world, and I disappeared into the stillness. It is an experience I carry with me everywhere and remembering it brings me almost as much Happiness as living it. Almost.
Sources
48 Little Things You Can Do to Make Yourself Happier Now
Elyse Gorman | @notesonbliss | ( https://elysesantilli.com/ ) on Thought Catalog
How to Be Happy 