Learning to Float: The Journey of a Woman, a Dog, and Just Enough Men - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lili Wright spent ten years as a journalist in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Utah, and Mexico. Her work has appeared in newspapers nationwide, including the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun. A graduate of Columbia University’s M.F.A. program, she currently teaches creative writing and journalism at DePauw University and lives in Greencastle, Indiana, with her husband and daughter.

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Lili Wright is a thirty-something woman on the emotional lam. Faced with a choice between two men--Stuart, the steady veterinarian, and Peter, the dreamy writer--she climbs into her car and leaves them both behind.
With only a borrowed dog named Brando for company and a map of twelve states in her pocket, Lili sets out on a road trip, hoping that by setting herself in motion she will find a way to settle down. Charting a course from Cadillac Mountain in Maine to the faded glory of Key West, Florida, she camps out on beaches and crashes on couches, in sketchy motels and even in a cop's trailer. She travels not only south, but also back in time, trying to figure out why previous relationships with a Nantucket waiter, a French tennis clown, a Utah ski bum, and others flared and fizzled.
Along the way, Lili meets a string of unlikely gurus, including a well-worn shrimper, a vegan astrologer, and even a woman who marries herself. These and other unassuming strangers offer offbeat wisdom and guidance as Lili struggles to understand the nature of love, the voodoo of sex, and how couples can settle down without settling for. Between adventures, Lili tackles tough questions: Why does everything love touches turn risky? Does staying with the same person mean staying the same? Where does love come from, and where does it go? By journey's end, this restless traveler begins to see how she can share her life with just one other person, and how love, like water, can make a body float.
Lili Wright's engaging memoir from the road updates the tradition of the picaresque traveler's tale. With unflinching honesty and refreshing wit, she captures the torn emotions, comic misfires, and inevitabletrade-offs felt by young people everywhere.

"From the Hardcover edition.

Aus dem Klappentext

is a thirty-something woman on the emotional lam. Faced with a choice between two men--Stuart, the steady veterinarian, and Peter, the dreamy writer--she climbs into her car and leaves them both behind.

With only a borrowed dog named Brando for company and a map of twelve states in her pocket, Lili sets out on a road trip, hoping that by setting herself in motion she will find a way to settle down. Charting a course from Cadillac Mountain in Maine to the faded glory of Key West, Florida, she camps out on beaches and crashes on couches, in sketchy motels and even in a cop's trailer. She travels not only south, but also back in time, trying to figure out why previous relationships with a Nantucket waiter, a French tennis clown, a Utah ski bum, and others flared and fizzled.

Along the way, Lili meets a string of unlikely gurus, including a well-worn shrimper, a vegan astrologer, and even a woman who marries herself. These and other unassuming strangers offer offbeat wisdom and g

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Mermaid

I've never seen a mermaid, but for years I felt like one.

Half pretty woman. Half cold fish.

No one knows the precise origin of the folklore, but sailors from Scandinavia to the Caribbean have sighted these bare-breasted sirens perched on ocean reefs. The most common explanation is that sailors, overcome by sun and testosterone, mistook a manatee for a beautiful woman. Manatees and women do share certain traits. Both have hair. Both sun themselves. Both breast-feed their young. And, well, that's about it.

But apparently the isolation of a long sea voyage can take its toll on a man; he learns to let his vision blur with pent-up desire. One Arctic explorer understood this well and hired the ugliest hag he could find to serve as ship cook. When the old crone began to look good to him, he knew it was time to head home.

Though the myth of the mermaid dates back to ancient Greece, she's lost none of her allure. Wherever I drove that summer, from Kennebunkport to Key Largo, mermaids perked up T-shirts and billboards and roadside menus, inevitably copping the same cartoonish pose--huge breasts, a tantalizing golden mane, a curvaceous tail that slimmed to a wedged bottom fin. Mermaid as sex symbol; it has always struck me as odd. I mean, below the belly button, the woman has nothing but scales.

Then again, perhaps it's the logistical impossibility of possessing a mermaid that makes her so desirable. She's the lover who can't be kept, the lady fish who swims away. In revenge, the scorned suitor depicts her as caricature--a big-titted monster, a high-maintenance vamp with a hand mirror and comb. Maker of storms. Tormenter of ships. Seducer of seamen. Vargas Girl meets Flipper.

Yet, for some reason, I'd always seen mermaids as kindred spirits, independent women who artfully slip between worlds. A mermaid can woo a brawny seaman and, when she tires of him, flip her tail and dive down to play with silver fishes. But the more I thought this through, and I did a lot that summer, the more I decided I had it all wrong. A mermaid is the saddest sort of hodgepodge, fulfilled in neither world. Eye on land, tail in the sea, she lingers on the cold rocks, hoping to catch the eye of a passing sailor she'll never call her own.

At the Bar

Fenwick island, de. It was Happy Hour and the rummy crowd at Smitty McGee's had knocked back enough half-price drinks to feel sun-flushed and loose. Around large wood tables, beaming vacationers gorged on buckets of steamers. I sat alone at the U-shaped bar, breathing in cigarettes and radon, listening to the blender grind ice cubes into slush. Finally, Christi, with a name tag, arrived with my white wine, which was served in a fish bowl and tasted like apple juice distilled through dirty nickels.

"It's huge," I said.

"Twelve ounces," said Christi, smiling. Christi had a tan.

Twelve ounces was fine with me--I was looking to catch a buzz. A month ago, I'd fled New York and the romantic mess I'd made there. I do my best thinking near the ocean, like dull rocks that look brighter when wet, so I'd mapped out a coastal pilgrimage from Maine to Key West. I was thirty-three and single, a woman on the emotional lam. I couldn't go home until I made some decisions, until I knew what to say to whom. But so far, I hadn't come up with any great answers.

Christi returned with a menu. I wanted oysters, but funds were running low, so opted for a salad. Then I pulled out the Buddha book my friend Maurice had recommended, a three-inch tome I had been too impatient to read for more than a few minutes at a stretch. So far, Buddha was wandering around hoping to find a prophet who could show him the Way. It wasn't much of a plan and, in that way, reminded me of my own venture. As I was discovering, wanting to find the Way and finding the Way were two very different things. Siddhartha had been muddling along for a hundred pages or so, meditating, waiting for truth to reveal itself. He was more patient than Job. Meanwhile, I had meandered a thousand miles from Maine to Delaware, waiting for anything to reveal itself. Frankly, I was getting impatient--for him and for me.

I read a couple sentences. Buddha was focusing on eternal enlightenment; I started worrying about Stan. Stan was a cop I'd met that morning who'd offered to let me sleep in his trailer, no strings attached, no Stan attached--he'd be out of town working for a couple of days. Though originally this freebie had seemed like a real traveling coup, now that it was nearly dark, the initial trustworthiness he had conveyed seemed like a distant and perhaps unreliable first impression. The idea of sleeping in a strange man's trailer, a man whose face I could no longer clearly picture, a man who said he was a cop but who knew? . . . well, it wasn't the most secure situation. I resolved to drink myself brave or sleepy, whichever came first.

Of course, if I'd really been brave, I never would have called Stuart. A woman of substance should be able to sustain herself, I lectured the side of my brain willing to listen. A woman of substance should be able to sustain herself without phoning up her ex. Look at Buddha. He left behind his wife and son for seven years and traveled alone, and even when the Way-less monk had company, he ate his meals without speaking, in "mindfulness," trying to appreciate every precious grain of rice.

Reaching for my wine, I took a hefty gulp and tried to decide just how much mindfulness I'd need to make this house white grow precious.

Two men walked in and slid onto the bar stools next to me. The younger one, forty or so, ordered beers and pushed a couple of bucks Christi's way. He had a mustache, straight brown bangs, and reminded me of Sonny Bono, back in the Cher days, only with thick glasses and wafflely sneakers. Beyond him slouched an older guy, bulldoggish with long gray sideburns, neck like a frog. Under his VFW cap, he wore the empty expression of a man thinking hard about his next cold draft.

I pretended to read until the younger guy, the one sitting next to me, interrupted.

"You mind if I smoke?"

I looked up. A scar broke over the bridge of his nose like shattered glass.

"No," I said. "Go ahead."

I returned to Buddha. Then they ate in silence, mindful of each bite.

"You visiting?" he asked.

In bars, as on airplanes, it's always risky to start up a conversation with the guy sitting next to you, particularly if you're a single woman. A single woman at a bar sticks out like the final bowling pin waiting to be taken down. Still, when traveling alone, I'd rather eat with dubious company at the bar than alone in the dining room, if only to avoid that moment when the hostess peers over your shoulder and asks, "Just one?" as if you've never had a friend in your life.

Besides, tonight, I had nowhere to go but back to Stan's trailer and I wasn't in any hurry to get there, so conversation seemed like a fine idea. I closed Buddha, mindfully, looked hard into this guy's glasses to convey I was not flirting but simply passing time, and set to work opening him up, seeing what lay inside.

"Visiting," I said. "I'm in grad school, traveling for the summer. What about you?"

"Oh, I live here," he said, pushing back his sleeves. "Work as a dental technician."

"What kind?" I asked.

After being a reporter for ten years before grad school, I could usually gather someone's life story without revealing so much as my name. It isn't hard, really. Most people are desperate to find someone who will listen. Sure enough, this guy began yammering away about his work in dental care. He smoked a Camel, snuffed it out, and lit another. My salad arrived, and I dug into...