The Summer of Summer: Flights

 

This might sound trite, or too on-the-nose, but reading Flights, Olga Tokarczuk’s unique book about many things under the umbrella of “travel” is like taking a journey. The best kind of travel journey, where you meander down one road to discover something that wasn’t in any of the guidebooks or maps. I’m not even sure how to describe this read, this wholly original book.

At times, it reminded me of another book with a big impact on me: Outline by Rachel Cusk. In that book, our narrator never introduces herself in a traditional way, and we learn about her as she moves through the world and interacts with others—thus, an outline of the person she is emerges. In Flights, Tokarczuk introduces herself from the start. She relays some of her earliest memories and talks about her parents’ methods of travel and therefore, her childhood exposure to the concept. After her parents spent time at a campsite or abroad, like most of us, they’d return home to jobs and bills and a worn path in the carpet of their flat. But the author claims her divergent path:

“That life is not for me. Clearly I did not inherit whatever gene it is that makes it so that when you linger in a place you start to put down roots. I’ve tried, a number of times, but my roots have always been shallow; the littlest breeze could always blow me right over…My energy derives from movement—from the shuddering of buses, the rumble of planes, trains’ and ferries’ rocking.”

And then, unlike Cusk’s traditionally undefined narrator, Tokarczuk gives a full run-down of herself:

“I have a practical build. I’m petite, compact. My stomach is tight, small, undemanding. My lungs and my shoulders are strong. I’m not on any prescriptions–not even the pill—and I don’t wear glasses.”

Etc., until the focus narrows.

“My abdominal aorta is normal. My bladder works. Hermoglobin 12.7. Leukocytes 4.5. Hematocrit 41.6. Platelets 228.” 

And more!

Why? Again, it’s hard to describe this book, which meanders down so many paths having to do with travel and permanence, moving and staying, life and death. There are stories heard during travel, stories about people met and places visited. There are conversations relayed from life on the road: on plane trips, in foreign cafes and bars, discussions had while waiting to go someplace else. And the book returns many times to meditations about the human body and everything it means to have one, as our physical forms fortify us, change, and die, as we move through time and space trying to find meaning in our relation to what lies beyond us.

Have you ever gotten into to your car to drive a familiar route and sort of blank out at some point, not remembering the specifics of how you progressed to your current location? Reading Flights reminded me of that. At some point, I would pause and think “Huh. Now I’m reading about a slave whose body was preserved against his family’s wishes,” or “Now I’m following the travels of Peter I, tsar of the Russian Empire.” What all the meandering paths have in common is always some consideration of travel, or the body, or both. Flights is unlike anything I’ve read, with this tight focus on the topic while at the same time, feeling that it’s going in every direction at once. You might be thinking that it sounds like a frustrating or challenging read, and I will say that maybe early on, I felt that way, as I wet my feet. But once you’re in, you’re in, and the stories and segments wash over you easily, as if you’ve been the passenger all along. The structure of the book itself, with its short sections and asides, its starts and stops and recurring segments and themes, makes it the perfect book to take on a journey, short or long. I believe the more I think about this book, the more it will resonate. And it definitely made me want to plan a trip.

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My Grandmother's European Tour

 

During World War II, my grandmother, Mary Bailey (later, Bowen), was in Texas serving in the Army as a nurse. My mother was five years old at the time, and left back in West Virginia in the care of her grandmother, Addie Bailey. My grandma was away from sometime in 1943 until September 1945; my mother remembers this specific return date, and remembers the extended family members living at her grandmother’s during this time. Only one man was around, one of her uncles who had a deferment; the rest had been drafted. This story of my grandma’s service was something I heard as a child and in the way of family stories, didn’t appreciate more fully until I grew up and had kids of my own, and no longer had her around to ask about these many months away from home. I do know and remember that she was very proud of her career, which continued in private practices after she returned, and of her service in the Army. As well she should have been.

Recently I was going through photographs and mementos with my mother, things both from her boxes and those moved over from my grandparents’ home. I’ve always had an interest in family photos and thought I had seen all of them, but some of these items I hadn’t. My grandparents have been gone for over a decade, but my uncle had been living in their place until his passing, a couple of years ago. So.

 

We came across some papers regarding a trip my grandmother took in 1962. Apparently, the professional organization of nurses to which she belonged planned a European tour. She traveled with them for a month, making stops throughout Italy, France, Germany, etc. My mother was already married and out of the house but her brothers—my two uncles who were born after the war—were fifteen and sixteen. We found the many letters my grandma wrote home, detailing her impressions (loved Capri, underwhelmed by Florence, etc.). In some of them, she mentioned her disappointment about not having a letter waiting for her at one of the hotels on the itinerary she’d left my grandfather and the boys. Apparently, they’d been given the directive to send these letters, so they’d be waiting at her stops. This is so like my grandma, I can’t even tell you. Overseeing everyone, being very clear about what is expected of you, making you feel your importance in her life while also being good to herself. There were a few letters from the eldest of her sons: telling her about a new girlfriend, hinting to the fact that he’d been promised a car when she returns.

I loved reading my grandma’s impressions along her journey and seeing her familiar, steady handwriting. I love that she made a few notes about souvenirs she wanted to purchase along the way. And I love, most of all, that she had the gumption to make the trip in the first place. Like my grandma, I’ve always loved travel and also like her, I’ve been known to be good to myself from time to time. My kids are about the age my uncles were when she went on this trip and I can’t even imagine doing something like that at this stage. In some ways, it was easier to go away when they were a bit younger. I don’t know if that’s because it feels like there are so many more things to keep a handle on these days, or because their time as children is so dangerously nearing its end. At any rate, I know this opportunity must have been difficult for her in many ways, but also very rewarding. Like her time in the Army. Like anything worth doing in this life, which has a way of presenting opportunities and challenges arm in arm.

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