Sterling Terrell

smart ideas from books

Not Talk Much

Not Talk Much

OMgoodness do I need to go somewhere for a week and not talk much.

My phone, books, and laptop, and I am good to go.

Throw in a few good restaurants too, and I would be in paradise.

For a week we lay in hammocks and fished desultorily and went to bed early and got very brown and lazy. My husband caught eight sharks, and I read an oceanography textbook, and we did not talk much. At the end of the week we wanted to do something, but all there was to do was visit the tracking station for an old space program or go see John Wayne and Claudia Cardinale in Circus World, and we knew it was time to go home.

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

A Place In Mexico

A Place In Mexico

Didion is talking about a place in Mexico, but this could be anywhere.

Anywhere you can find a listless do-nothing kind of afternoon.

A place where you can spend time in a way that only the rich and poor can afford to do.

The description reminds me of an old hotel I stayed at in San Buenaventura many years ago.

It was not by the sea, but I would have stayed for the entire summer if I could have.

That place was a mirage, too, lovely and cool with thick whitewashed walls and dark shutters and bright tiles, tables made from ebony railroad ties, pale appliqued muslin curtains, shocks of corn wrapped around the heavy beams. Pepper trees grew around the swimming pool, and lemons and bananas in the courtyard. The food was unremarkable, but after dinner one could lie in a hammock on the terrace and listen to the fountains and the sea.

-Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem