The Best American Travel Writing 2020 by Jason Wilson

The Best American Travel Writing 2020 by Jason Wilson

Author:Jason Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780358362043
Publisher: HMH Books
Published: 2020-11-03T00:00:00+00:00


On another sunny day, I started early for Föglö, a group of islands in the southern archipelago. Föglö made world news in recent years: A 19th-century schooner was discovered to have been wrecked off the islands. In 2010 divers salvaged 168 bottles of the world’s oldest champagne from the cargo. Preserved for 170 years at 160 feet underwater, it was still of good quality.

The ferry ride, which took around 45 minutes, was the quintessential experience of journeying across an archipelago, the routes well marked by buoys, poles, and lighthouses. Green islands loomed on the horizon in every direction, and nearer, white sailboats lingered. Once in a while, a mute swan came as though out of nowhere. So still, so impeccable in its posture, it looked like a marble sculpture—but no marble sculpture could move with such ease.

From Föglö terminal, I drove to all the islands crossable by bridges, stopping each time when I reached the sea. On both sides of the roads were cow pastures and barns, potato fields and orchards, the sights of prosperous farm life.

When I reached the very eastern end of Föglö, there was a public beach, empty but for a hammock, a shower shed, a picnic table and two benches. Had there been a palm tree or two, it would have looked like one of those hidden beaches on Kauai, Hawaii, where my children and my father had once disturbed a tiny crab while digging a sand castle. The beaches on Kauai had been full of tourists then, and we had been a different family.

What does contentment mean when life is full of the unexpected and the unwanted? That day, nearly hypnotized by the sea, the islands, the white sails, the sun that moved imperceptibly in the sky, I asked myself this question. Part of my life is what I have striven to make it be: I emigrated to America, I built a family, I became a writer. Part of my life has wounded me. I have experienced joy and darkness, I have learned suffering and willfulness, but I have never known discontentment or contentment. I had not even thought about those words until I was on Åland.

The etymology of the words—“contentment,” “contented”—comes from Latin, continere: “to hold together, to hold in.” It strikes me that when people write congratulatory messages, their wishes are for happiness, and in condolence letters, people mention peace as an alternative to grief. In any of life’s moments, contentment seems a lesser state: How many of us would wish that a friend or a beloved have a life of contentment, or a life free of discontentment? How many of us would make that the ambition of our own lives?

It is my habit, before visiting a place, to read a few novels set there. And when I returned from Föglö, I opened Ice, Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s 2012 novel (translated in 2016 by Thomas Teal) set in the post–World War II era of Åland, and reread some favorite passages.

Ice is a novel of Åland,



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