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Books and Places of the Heart

September 9, 2012 •

We’ve been vaca­tion­ing by the Cape Cod seashore, at a fam­ily home over­look­ing a tidal marsh and a bay watered by the Nan­tucket Sound.

Poponessett Bay in early September

On sum­mer days this bay is alive with kayaks, sail­boats, power­boats and jet skis, echo­ing with the sounds of fam­i­lies at play. After Labor Day plea­sure boats drowse at docks and moor­ings, except for after­noons and week­ends when the locals reclaim their bay. By now the calls of osprey, gulls and great blue herons have replaced man-made sounds from boat­ing and water sports.

We rel­ish sail­ing and kayak­ing these waters in the golden light of Sep­tem­ber. But when fog or rain rolls in, we turn to books and mag­a­zines. Quiet moments shel­ter­ing from the rain, lux­u­ri­at­ing in “slow read” books, tales that unfold slowly. We find our­selves set­ting aside pulp fic­tion bet­ter suited for cross-coun­try flights. Instead we savor mem­oirs and sto­ries with imagery and prose that delight the mind’s eye and charm the tongue like a multi-lay­ered fine wine. Well-crafted writ­ing that takes time and atten­tion to be appre­ci­ated.

Two such books have enchanted me this vaca­tion:

  • Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Paja­mas and Found Hap­pi­ness by Dominique Brown­ing
  • Sloop: Restor­ing My Fam­i­ly’s Wooden Sail­boat by Daniel Robb

Both are writ­ten by New Eng­land authors fac­ing per­sonal rein­ven­tion and dis­cov­ery in midlife, what Slow Love’s author calls “the inter­tidal years.”

Slow Love, A Life Story to Savor

Dominique Brown­ing is the for­mer edi­tor-in-chief of the now defunct House & Gar­den mag­a­zine. In 2007 she was laid off from her job when Condé Nast decided to fold the mag­a­zine. Slow Love describes her strug­gles with self-esteem, iden­tity and loss of pur­pose after being thrust abruptly into unem­ploy­ment. Her pain is com­pounded by more uni­ver­sal midlife griefs:

At the start of this jour­ney, all I could think about was loss: lost work; my chil­dren who had left home; my par­ents slip­ping into their last years. Lost love, on top of it all, because I was finally forced to con­front the fail­ure of a rela­tion­ship that had pre­oc­cu­pied me for seven years.

— From Slow Love by Dominique Brown­ing

After los­ing her NYC salary, Dominique reluc­tantly sells her “For­ever House” just out­side Man­hat­tan. She moves to a mod­est cot­tage on the Rhode Island shore where she learns how to cre­ate a slower, sim­pler but richer life. Liv­ing sim­ply and in a less expen­sive place enables her to live on what she earns as a writer, blog­ger and con­sul­tant while focus­ing atten­tion on the things, peo­ple and places that she loves. She quips: “Slow love is about know­ing what you’ve got before it’s gone.”

Dominique has crafted a life filled with sim­pler joys: gar­den­ing, cook­ing, read­ing, swim­ming, kayak­ing, and cher­ish­ing moments spent with friends and fam­ily. Today she shares the joys of “her inter­tidal years” via her blog, Slow Love Life.

This is one of many pas­sages in Slow Love that spoke to me:

The edge of the sea has many voices, … some boom­ing, some fran­tic, some crash­ing. But the voice I respond most deeply to, lis­ten most closely to, is one that whis­pers: a susurra­tion of water rif­fling across clack­ing stone, min­gled with breezes catch­ing in the high grass of the dunes. After years of first find­ing and then finally hear­ing and under­stand­ing what that voice can teach me, I have just begun to accept the relent­less flux that is the con­di­tion of my life, of all our lives. Not young, not old; not betrothed, not alone; think­ing back, look­ing for­ward; not bro­ken, not quite whole any­more, either. But present. These are my inter­tidal years.

— From Slow Love by Dominique Brown­ing

Sloop

Although Sloop is also a mem­oir, it tells a dif­fer­ent story: what it’s like to live and work on Cape Cod while learn­ing how to restore a clas­sic wooden sail­boat that has been in the author’s fam­ily since 1939. The boat at the heart of this story is a “twelve-and-a-half” sloop designed by Her­reshoff — a clas­sic Amer­i­can trea­sure in the eyes of wooden boat lovers.

Herreshoff 12 and 1/2 sloopLike many peo­ple who live year round on Cape Cod, author Daniel Robb cob­bles together a liv­ing from mul­ti­ple sources; in his case, from car­pen­try, roof­ing, writ­ing, teach­ing and act­ing stints in nearby sum­mer reper­tory the­aters.

At first he under­takes the sail­boat restora­tion project as an oppor­tu­nity to earn some money. Daniel Robb pitches the idea of restor­ing his fam­i­ly’s vin­tage sail­boat and writ­ing about the expe­ri­ence to his pub­lisher, who approves the project con­cept.

But the quest to restore the derelict boat quickly becomes much more than a way to spend time and earn some much-needed income. Even when he’s “off Cape” earn­ing money, the author is pre­oc­cu­pied with the chal­lenges pre­sented by the sail­boat restora­tion project.

We learn that “it takes a vil­lage” to restore a 1939 wooden sail­boat. It demands resource­ful solu­tions and access to raw mate­ri­als that are hard to come by. Trips to marine spe­cialty sup­pli­ers in New Bed­ford, places that were thriv­ing 150 years ago before steam dis­placed ships pow­ered by wind.

The author spends hours over tea and cof­fee, seek­ing advice from local boat­builders and arti­sans who under­stand the art and sci­ence of build­ing ocean-wor­thy craft from wooden com­po­nents and met­als that resist cor­ro­sion. Peo­ple who know mod­ern work-arounds when orig­i­nal equip­ment or mate­ri­als can no longer be found. Robb learns through trial and error, some­times the hard way — for exam­ple, what it takes to bend wood into curv­ing frames and ribs.

I loved the story because it takes place not far from our Cape Cod home, in set­tings that we’ve vis­ited with our broth­ers and sis­ters. My hus­band loved it in part because he owns a mod­ern repro­duc­tion of a 12 1/2 sloop; his 10-year-old Bul­l’s Eye fea­tures a hull based on tem­plates designed by Her­reshoff.

We both loved Sloop for its insights into rela­tion­ships, crafts­man­ship, exper­tise shar­ing, and the wry ways in which New Eng­lan­ders offer advice and crit­i­cism. It’s a “down home” kind of story. Per­fect for a rainy day.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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