Escape from January

In my urgent need to escape this month horribilis I went to the library and brought home three books. I have read two so far. The In-Betweens was on the "new" shelf and the title caught my eye. The subtitle was even better: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna. Few things offer a better escape from reality than unreality so I grabbed it.

I had never heard of Camp Etna or its legends and knew nothing about the Spiritualist Church or its history. It turns out the author, Mira Ptacin, didn't know much either, so I opened her book and we fled January together.

The book is part memoir and part history, and begins in 1848 when two adolescent sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox, claimed they could speak to the dead. Their stage appearances helped launch a national obsession with spiritualism, leading eventually to the establishment of the Spiritualist Church, now a recognized religion.

This obsession coincided with the Civil War, which left so many bereft and searching for answers. It was also linked to the growing feminist movement, "a natural partnership" Ptacin writes, "given Spiritualism's long-standing respect for women's voices and intuition."

The author lives in Maine and made visits to nearby Camp Etna over a three-year period, interviewing mediums and camp visitors and having her own spiritual adventures.

I knew about the more generic summer camps that proliferated along the east coast in the 19th and early 20th century. They offered an affordable escape from a city's heat, with family oriented activities, games, swimming, dancing, and more. Camp Etna was a popular destination for spiritualists and curious others and is now "the longest running camp devoted to mysticism and the world beyond." Visitors—though now not so numerous—still arrive in summer, eager for some outdoor time and maybe a medium's message.

I enjoyed the author's stories as she came to know some of the permanent residents, mostly mediums, and her descriptions of the camp itself, its picturesque old cabins and its atmosphere of camaraderie and competition. It's a place and a life of which I've no direct experience, but I'm glad I opened the door and made its acquaintance.

The second book was found while wandering the stacks: John Muir's Last Journey: South to the Amazon and East to Africa, edited by Michael Branch (2001). As a California native I knew of John Muir almost by osmosis. His work and influence were surely part of my California history classes, and the beauty of Yosemite and the loss of the Hetch Hetchy Valley are deeply and constantly linked with his name.

But I wasn't aware of this "last journey," so I pulled it off the shelf. It's a naturalist/history book, with almost as many pages of appendices as the meat of its subject. There are seven chapters covering various stages of Muir's travels. Each consists of the editor's summary followed by Muir's scientific and other notes and sketches, followed by his correspondence.

Muir had long dreamed of visiting what he called the "hot" continents, to see for himself and to study and measure exotic trees and other flora. It was a naturalist's dream trip, taken from August 1911 to March 1912 by a man then 73 years old. What he saw—and took notes on—delighted him throughout the journey. He planned a book about it, but died two years later having written little.

I'm not a naturalist, so I found some of the book dry and not always compelling. I'm glad though, that I read it. I learned much and savored his descriptions of the land and seascapes he traveled through. Muir's deep respect and love of the natural world made the ever-changing scenery a constant source of joy to him, and thus to me, his reader. I felt the loss of his never written book.

So it's now the middle of January and I've visited two new, unfamiliar worlds and broadened my appreciation for the multiple ways humans find to express themselves and live their lives. And there's still a novel waiting for me, a 2019 Booker Prize short-lister recommended by my English friend Carolyn: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. A back cover blurb from Elle (UK) assures me that "This masterful novel is a choral love song to black womanhood." Another new world; I can't wait to get started.

(So maybe January isn't so bad after all? Ha.)