Cures for Homesickness

Lately, I've been a little homesick.

Not miserably so; far from it. I'm pretty happy here, but it's hard to settle in to a new place in a bigger city when you've just spent three years in a small town where almost everyone knows almost everyone else and where you practically live with all of your friends and classmates.

Luckily, though, I've been living abroad (off and on) since I was 15, so I'm getting pretty good at dealing with homesickness. These are the things that always make me feel better - or at least make me feel like I'm not the only person in the world who has felt this way before!

1. Betsy and the Great World, by Maud Hart Lovelace
The Betsy-Tacy series includes several of my most beloved books, and the 9th book in the series is perhaps my favorite. I first read it when I was barely 16, living in France, and pretty homesick most of the time. It was such a comfort. Following 22-year-old Betsy Ray across Europe in 1914 always makes me feel more glad to be in Europe and less sad not to be in the U.S. I take it with me everywhere I go.

2. Les Demoiselles de Rochefort a film with music by Michel Legrand - or the soundtrack
This is one of my favorite movies. A musical, in French, with Gene Kelly speaking in a wonderful and hilarious American accent (though I've never been able to figure out how much of his part is dubbed). Anyway, it concerns two young women, dissatisfied with their small town lives and lack of love, and lots of amazing costumes and nice songs. It also reminds me how much I've learned through these experiences and how worthwhile it all is. Each time I watch it, I understand a new aspect, plot twist, or scene better, and I'm so glad I went to France, which was the foundation for all of my other trips abroad.

3. Alles is Liefde
A Dutch Sinterklaas movie, inspired by Love Actually. Every time I watch it, I feel like I could never bear to leave this beautiful country. I also have the same type of learning experience as I do with #2, only this time, it's with the Dutch language and culture.


4. "Frasier"
Sometimes I just want to be sad. Getting over it is all very good, but happiness isn't so great if it isn't contrasted with occasional periods of sadness. So when I just want to miss the Pacific Northwest, I curl up with a cup of tea and a few episodes of Frasier, which always crack me up, and have since I was a little kid.



5. Portland's Wikipedia page
A similar way to wallow that is always fun - and educational! - is to spend some quality time with Portland's wikipedia page, learning some awesome new facts. When people here ask me about Portland, I tend to overwhelm them with random facts. I start with the more well-known things - the Simpsons! Nike! - and then move on to the obscure. For example, did you know that Portland is the second-largest wheat port in the WORLD? Also, it has the most beer-breweries of any city in the United States. And, the Portland Art Museum has 40,000 pieces, compared to Seattle's 25,000, and is the 7th oldest art museum in the country, and the oldest on the West Coast.

Take as many doses as necessary, preferably with chocolate, and you'll be good as new in no time!

The Future of Reading

This weekend, I was to read an article for school on The Future of Reading, from a 2007 issue of Newsweek, mostly about the kindle and the ebook.

I find this stuff rather depressing.

Sure, I think the kindle is a good idea. I can definitely see the attraction of the gadget, especially for travelers and frequent fliers. It would be a great thing for any exchange student, who is only allowed one or two suitcases to stuff her whole life into. Same for the college student, and school reading as well as recreational.

But as a replacement to the book, I remain quite old-school in opinion. I don't like to imagine a world without the material book as we now know it, and it depresses me to read so much about it. Different theories on how the book will die, when the book will die... It's enough to make any book reader want to go bury themselves in a book! (Preferably one that takes place hundreds of years ago and doesn't contain any of these modern distractions).

What scares me the most is that when people talk about the future and the book, they indicate that all sorts of changes will have to be made - to novels, and to the way people write. This isn't the case with the future of music and film - these media are already well-adjusted to the fast pace that the internet enables. But the kindle will be able to link all of these words, ideas, and works together through hyperlinks, etc. - a modern, networked footnote.

And that is going to change the way we read.

And that prospect, to me, is not a very happy one. Luckily, I don't think the book will disappear during my lifetime - I think there are too many people of my generation who like books for their physical form as well as their content. To me, however, it's still a dismal thought. How can you compare browsing on amazon.com with a trip to Powell's or De Slegte and browsing in person, not just scanning the books but touching them, and smelling them, and finding little inscriptions and dedications from previous readers?

The kindle, as far as I can see, only stimulates two senses, and one of them - touch - it stimulates only minimally.

On the other hand, many people love the smell of books, or the weight of different-sized works in their hands. When I turn to one of my favorite comfort books, I pick up Betsy and Joe - the binding is coming undone and the pages are yellowed. It is old and dog-eared, but it is familiar and comfortable, like a friend. And that's what you want in a comfort read. For me, the physical differences between and variety of books is a big part of the attraction.

One more thing about books and their current form that I think will keep people from giving them up too quickly: books are an identity construct.

When I go to someone's house, I notice what books they keep on their bookshelves. And I'm quite sure I'm not the only one who does this. I may not have very many books here in Leiden, but the ones that I do have - baseball books, travel guides, books in French, Spanish, and Dutch, Betsy-Tacy books, Jane Austen, poetry, Dominican authors - it's all part of who I am, and it's displayed on my bookshelves.

As Cicero said, "A room without books is like a body without a soul". I don't think he was referring purely to content. It is the presence of that content. I take comfort in the fact that it will be a while before the feeling that is conveyed through a single kindle on a table will be the same as the feeling we get through hundreds of books on shelves.

Classic Covers

Or perhaps I should title this, "Covers of Classics". Because their covers are anything but classic.

There are lots of classics of children's literature that I love, and re-read, over and over again. I know I've mentioned Betsy-Tacy multiple times already. (At the moment, I'm supposed to be preparing a presentation on the autobiographical nature of the series. Ranting about the cover designs, though, is even more fun.)

Other favorites include the Little House Series (which grow in my estimation every time a Dutch friend of mine acts bored at the slightest mention of the books - how can anybody hate them so?), Little Women, and the Lois Lenski books (although I haven't re-read many of those) among others.

When the new Betsy-Tacy editions came out in 2000, I was very disappointed with the covers. The Diane Goode ones were so cute and perfect, continuing the tradition that Lenski and Vera Neville began, with lovely, vague illustrations that allowed the reader to hold onto their unique mental image of the characters. The new covers were anything but vague, and the only possible improvement can be to the last two books, which were never done by Goode. They have that fake-photograph type of illustration that is rarely any good.

But I must admit, the fake-photograph is better than the actual photograph. I recently saw the newer Little House books and shuddered. On the cover of These Happy Golden Years, Almanzo looks like a gothic 15-year-old (he should be 27 or so), and Laura like his flirtatious girlfriend. Can you imagine her latching onto him like that on one of their evening buggy rides? I don't think so.

To whom are they marketing these editions? Is this the way the publishing houses try to catch the attention of a generation that was raised on television?

Does that mean illustrations are on the way out, too?

I'm looking forward to the new Betsy-Tacy editions, however. I don't love the idea of the last six books being released in paired bindings - Heaven to Betsy and Betsy in Spite of Herself in one volume, etc - but the covers are more old-fashioned and sweet again, and they're in affordable, long-lasting hardback, which makes it all so much nicer. And I need hardback - my copy of Betsy and Joe is about to fall to pieces.

I'm such a traditionalist. I sometimes wonder how I can ever be expected to fit in in this era...

Betsy-Gracie

I am a huge fan of Betsy-Tacy books.

It's a series of books based on the true life (well, childhood and coming-of-age) of the author, Maud Hart Lovelace, growing up in small-town Minnesota at the turn of the century. The first book, Betsy-Tacy, begins when almost-5-year-old Betsy (based on Maud) becomes friends with actual 5-year-old Tacy (fictional counterpart of her friend Bick). In book 2, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, the close pair of friends become a trio. There are ten books in all, the last being Betsy's Wedding, which takes place about 20 years later.

I liked these books as a kid, and I rediscovered them when I was 15-16, living in Nice, France. I was very homesick, and one day I realized I had never read the 9th book - Betsy and the Great World. When I was a kid, I started it, but I stopped reading it because Betsy was traveling through Europe, but Tacy and Tib weren't with her.

It was like getting a Christmas or birthday present that someone had forgotten to give you. No, it was better than that. It was almost like when my friend Anne was looking through my CDs and found a Nat King Cole album that I had never opened, but put on the shelf and forgotten about. (I had bought it with two others, and in my excitement for the others, I had never even opened the Nat King Cole CD.) No, it was even better than that.

I know! It was like it would be if someone discovered a seventh complete novel by Jane Austen. That's how I felt.

Anyway, I decided to order it. What better time to read about a young woman living in Europe than when you, yourself, are a young woman living in Europe? While I was at it, I thought I might as well order the 4 high school books, which I probably hadn't read since I was 9 or so.

I waited and waited, and finally, my package came. Being the thorough person that I am, I started at the beginning, with Heaven to Betsy (the 5th book). And when I finished that one , I picked up Betsy in Spite of Herself, then Betsy Was a Junior, and then Betsy and Joe, and then, finally, Betsy and the Great World.

I read those books in a week. I read one each day. I remember, I tried to pace myself with the last one. Since I had never read it before, I managed to stretch out the reading of this particular book of juvenile fiction, appropriate for Ages 8 and up, over two days.

It must have been so hard to force myself to sleep that Friday night, and so exciting to wake up the next morning. I wonder if I reached for it the minute I opened my eyes, and stayed in my bed in the loft for however long it took to finish it. Or, maybe I stretched it out - got up, took a shower, ate breakfast... no, I probably didn't make it through breakfast!

I take Betsy and the Great World with me everywhere. I took it to the Dominican Republic, and it was the one book I couldn't, or wouldn't, leave behind for the school library. I have 6 Betsy-Tacy books here, and have read them all multiple times in the last 2.5 years.

I was thinking about them again this week because yesterday was my 22nd birthday, and I always remember the description of Betsy's 22nd birthday from The Great World:

"Since leaving Munich she had had her twenty-second birthday. A strange birthday with no cake or presents, just the wine of traveling alone... seeing strange places, meeting new people, struggling with a foreign language!" (Maud Hart Lovelace, pg. 218)

Well, my birthday wasn't alone, and I made myself a cake (yellow with chocolate frosting), and several of my friends gave me presents.

My parents gave me a present too - I got this card in the mail from the Betsy-Tacy Society.


"Dear Grace,
A gift of $100 was given in your honor by your mother. This gift will be used to pay the mortgage on Betsy's House."

There will be a plaque with my name on it in the house! It is the perfect present for someone in my situation - moving soon, far from being settled, and with little need or use for stuff. THANKS, MOM & DAD!

Oh, and if anybody else ever wants to get me a present...