Finding "Home" While Traveling

The bookshop cat in Calistoga, CA

There is a bookstore in Porto, Portugal that requires reserved paid tickets for entry. That’s right…you have to pay, and pay handsomely, to enter the shop. I discovered Livraria Lello while talking to a friend last week; she said it regularly shows up on lists of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. The shop’s interior is a mix of ornate neo-Gothic bookshelves and the sinuous lines of Art Nouveau details, with a magnificent red central staircase under a second-floor skylight. This beautiful space was a problem: the shop was swarmed with tourists taking photos but not buying books. Now, the tourists pay their entry fee, take their photos, and the bookstore is out of the red. The cost of timed ticket entry to Livraria Lello runs anywhere from 10 Euro (about $12) that can be used as a voucher toward the purchase of a book, to 50 Euro (about $59) which also includes shorter-wait entry through the “gold” line and access to an exhibition.

Luckily for me, I plan to spend a few weeks in Portugal on my road trip starting next February and Livraria Lello is now on my “must visit” list. This discussion with my friend made me curious about other beautiful bookstores in Europe and a little bit of research turned up enough exciting results to make my alarmingly long “must visit” list even longer - Shakespeare and Company in Paris, Daunt Books in London, and maybe if I get to Venice, the Libreria Acqua Alta.

Yes, I am excited about this. So excited, I pulled out that spreadsheet of calculations I did a few months ago and went to work. If I forgo all the cheese I might fit in the passenger compartment of the Blue Car (136 one-kilo wheels), I can purchase 220 average-size hardcover or paperback books on my road trip. Of course, I can mix and match if I want to read while eating cheese, or eat cheese while reading.

These calculations are fun…who doesn’t want to know how many books fit in the passenger compartment of a Porsche? I do expect to read a lot during my road trip, but I doubt I will bring many books home. As for the cheese? I plan to eat it along the way. But I will visit all the bookshops I can and certainly buy a few books.

Bookstores are some of my favorite places and when I am traveling; they often become home for me. Oh, not my actual home, but a good substitute in a pinch—offering a familiar and calm place where I am surrounded by people who share a common interest. I can walk into any bookshop and know I will find kindred spirits who love reading and learning new things, and who marvel at the power of words. It’s a bit like going to a car show and knowing you I have at least one thing in common with everyone there. This home away from home serves a great purpose.

When I was twenty, I took my first trip to Europe for a study abroad semester. I had a two-week travel break in the middle of the term that summer and, never having traveled before, I foolishly packed too much for that trip. To say I was miserable would be an understatement (read Traveling with Ralph if you want all the details). In the heat and crowds of Paris, as I was en route from one city to another, I found myself in front of a shop window filled with books. I went inside, lugging my very large and heavy backpack (I had with me, among many other things, my Walkman, speakers, and ten extra D size batteries). Using hand signals and facial gestures, I got permission to leave my pack in the stockroom while I perused the shelves with a lightness of being composed of equal parts relief at the loss of my load and delight from the books around me. I almost missed my train and yes, it was worth it. My short time in that shop allowed me to re-set in some way I didn’t understand at the time. I left the shop (with my backpack, although I was tempted to abandon it) feeling restored and refreshed, ready to make the trek across the city for another station and yet another train.

What is the magic for me? Maybe it’s the quiet---the muffled footsteps and whispered conversations. Or perhaps it is having all those worlds and experiences and adventures in one place, available by simply picking up a book and opening it. Certainly, some of a bookstore’s magic is in the memories embodied on those shelves. Books trigger my memory of time, and place, and people, much like the ways a particular smell, or sound, or photo can do. These memories often bring me home. And sometimes when we travel, we just need to be home, even if only in spirit.

In Napa Valley on my road trip across the U.S., a bookstore in Calistoga was just what I needed when things weren’t quite right. It may have been one wine tasting too many or perhaps it was a 24-hour bug. I spent an evening with a protesting stomach before finally curling up in a ball on my hotel bed and falling into a deep sleep. But not before I canceled the tastings for the next day and toggled off the alarm on my phone.

Morning came and after a few sips of peppermint tea, I felt a little better. After a long, steaming shower, and more tea, I decided on an easy day and drove the short distance to Calistoga’s downtown. It was midday and all was quiet. Boutiques and cafes lined the charming main street, and I listlessly wandered, enjoying the lack of purpose in my stroll and cautiously testing myself. Then I spied it: a bookstore.

I spent an hour on the floor in the children’s section…yes, the children’s section. A part of me reverts to “Susan the child” in any bookstore with a good children’s section…the kind with colorful rugs, stuffed animals in the chairs, posters on the walls, and oodles and oodles of books. All of these things evoke memories of the piled pillows in the corner of my room and reading under the covers with a flashlight. What’s not to love? In the children’s section, the shop’s cat came over to say hello and promptly curled up in my lap for a nap and I had a pile of books by my side.

I can connect any children’s book we have read with what we were doing and the age of my kids at the time. My three children are grown now, but those hundreds of worn books that accompanied us through their childhood years, that sent them off to sleep every night, are still on bookshelves in my home. They are as good as photographs in evoking memories of a time and place, of a mood. And I am not above pulling one from the shelf and taking a read from time to time.

On that day in Calistoga, 65 days and 8723 miles into my road trip, I found myself home again, which is where I needed to be with a stomach that was still unsettled and a body and mind wrapped in a general feeling of malaise. While the bookstore cat purred away on my lap, I read Harold and the Purple Crayon, a book about a boy whose magic crayon makes monsters disappear and turns frightening things into flowers. That book was important at a time in our lives when we all wished for that magic crayon of Harold’s – we needed it badly. And then I picked up Brave Irene, a tale of a girl who surmounts impossible odds and successfully foils her foes to achieve her goal. It was a good lesson for my daughter as she faced mean girls in middle school, and not a bad message for her adult mother as well. We all need a little boost from time to time. The cat slept on as book after book provided comfort and some inner quiet. I needed both.

Bookstores are an anchor for me when I travel; they keep me grounded at times when I need a boost. Sometimes I am tired and need a break, other times they provide respite from bad weather, and sometimes, I just need to feel something familiar in an unfamiliar place. I don’t think I am unusual in this regard; I know many people look for anchors to ground them, to keep them on course, while they travel. Sometimes it is culture that does the trick – I have a friend who visits museums and exhibits of favorite artists to help her find her footing when traveling. Often, food serves this purpose, putting us on familiar ground when we most need it. Working as a teaching assistant in the MIT/Beijing summer study program right after graduate school, I was in my first trimester with my middle child and after three weeks of eating delicious local food, I had simply had enough of unfamiliar oils and spices. My pregnant self wanted familiarity. I had a satisfying meal at Pizza Hut and vowed never again to judge anyone for their traveling eating habits.

The thing is, we all need anchors at one point or another. We all occasionally feel the desire to be home while we are traveling. No matter how much fun we are having and who we are with. Those anchors can be anything, and they are as individual as we are. Over the years they can change; it’s important to listen to yourself and what you need. And sometimes it’s just trial and error. Or pure luck: I had no idea my quick visit to a bookshop in Paris would lighten my load on that difficult day. One thing I do know is that I am fortunate: I don’t need anchors often, and bookstores are still fairly easy to come by.

And when I am desperate, finding some good cheese works in a pinch.