We were all posting photos on Facebook - of the scenery and of each other. One of my brother's friends recommended Calypso by David Sedaris in response to one of my brother's posts. This latest Sedaris collection of essays is about his North Carolina beach house - and his family. See the connection? We weren't at the beach, but we were in North Carolina - and we were with family.
As soon as I read this guy's comment, I looked up the book, added it to my TBR list... and ended up starting it a few days later. I think this is my favorite of all the Sedaris books I've read.
As much as this book is about family vacations in North Carolina, it's more about aging within the context of being part of a family. It's about loss. It's about watching parents age. I connected with this book on so many levels.
It started with this: ...thinking all the while about my ever-shrinking family. A person expects his parents to die. But a sibling? I felt I'd lost the identity I'd enjoyed since 1968, when my brother was born.
I caught my older daughter getting weepy several times on our North Carolina vacation. She was missing the four members of our family who were no longer with us. Within the past few years, we've lost my parents, my aunt, and a cousin who was more like a sister. My cousin helped me get through the first three losses, and my identity was so tied to hers. I was the little cousin and she was my idol. How many times after my cousin died did I say the exact words that Sedaris used, changing the word sibling to cousin? I expected to grow old with my darling cousin. Now, years later, I miss my parents, but they lived a good life. I expected to live to old age with my cousin. When her life ended, our life together was cut short.
He wrote this about diaries: "After I die, and you read something bad about yourself in my diary, do yourself a favor and keep reading," I often say to Hugh. "I promise that on the next page you'll find something flattering. Or maybe the page after that."
Just the day before, I'd had a discussion about just this with fellow bullet journalers. The question came up about whether or not to keep your bullet journal after you complete a notebook. My thought was, of course keep it! I treasured little things that I found from my parents after they died. I like to think that my kids or grandkids will find my bullet journals a treasure. One of the journalers in my group writes something at the front of each of her journals similar to what David spoke to Hugh. Perhaps I should do the same.
There were some political bits in the book that I thoroughly enjoyed. Then again, we think along the same lines. Enough said. Sad to think that our society is so politically divided right now that some people might not be able to make it through this entire book without throwing it against the wall in disgust. But based on that, I can not recommend this book unconditionally even though I gave it five stars on goodreads.
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