During COVID a work colleague explained how he incentivised his 8-year old daughter to read by creating a book chart. At the culmination of the chart, the daughter had a Yes Day upon which the family had to say ‘yes’ to her proposals for a 24 hour period. Ice-cream for breakfast was reportedly first on the list.
Declan thought this was a cute idea and instituted a similar idea for my book reading. I personally have mixed feelings about this. Reading is a pleasure, not a sport or competition, and having to document finished novels does frame the hobby as one that implies self-improvement is a goal. I can extend these misgivings to this blog itself.
I have chosen to re-frame this blog as a space where I can be creative and not bound by a formula – I can speak to the book’s plot and themes as little or as much as I feel. The entire post can revolve around how I found the book, and contain no reference to the contents between the covers. In some ways, this blog is a way of honouring the world of books, a world which extends far outside of the physical item itself. Equally, I can use the post to record a paragraph that I want to revisit and re-examine in different moods and ages.
Justifying the book chart is harder, and I still fundamentally don’t agree with it. There is no benefit in simply listing read books, as if the quantity adds to a worthy pursuit. Sometimes I look at the chart and wonder how much time I have spent within pages and if in fact it’s not a total waste. But all in all, it’s a small commitment and I adhere to it now out of habit.
Here is a photo-essay of my second Yes Day, corresponding to my second completed book chart.
Clouds rolling in the flats as we descend the mountain range towards Lithgow. The Cox’s Road upgrade in the middle ground was begun with the intention of supporting the (now abandoned) tunnel through Blackheath.We didn’t know it at the time but this part of Wolgan Road (being resealed) would terminate after 15 minutes and the plan to look at the abandoned shale mines in Newnes would subsequently be abandoned.But before that, abutting the road work, was Natalie’s coffee cart. Given this road leads nowhere, Natalie’s only customers would be the 10 construction site workers. When asked how long the road has been closed, she said “2 years”, and I reflected on the pointlessness of small enterprise. Natalie serves her coffee on long life milk. The astute blog follower will find it easy to visualise that I am in trouble with Declan for not researching road closures before leaving.In a scramble to find a nearby activity that does not require us crossing a catastrophic road failure, I find Jannei Goat Farm. At Jannei Goat Farm we do a cheese tasting, during which we are hostage to Neil’s wife monologuing us through the trials and tribulations of small business. I don’t know her name, but I learn a lot about Marge (unknown relation) and Neil (husband) and their Holy Goat competitor and Meredith Dairy and the home-schooled farm hands who don’t communicate and rebranding away from cheddar and the loan needed for goat milking and the management course recently taken that outlined the importance of meetings and and and and. Somehow this visit costs $70 after buying two small squares of cheese.And that $70 didn’t even buy us these gorgeous dogs!I like sticks.I favour digging in poop.All that fun and the day was only just beginning! Next on the random drive was Portland. Portland was a large industrial town – the whole town revolved around a massive cement factory. Now the town sags under its own weight. The main street is more or less desolate on the Saturday we visit (and likely also during the surrounding weekdays). We visit a secondhand bookstore which has a surprisingly good collection but I am their only customer for the day, evidenced by the fact they didn’t turn on the EFTPOS machine and instead request I go and get cash out across the street. That shop had been opened for six months and when I asked how it was going, the shopkeeper said “we’re finding that Portland is not really a book-ish town”. Declan makes the observation that this town is probably populated by those who couldn’t afford Lithgow, and I think that speaks to the state of the town. I feel sad for Portland – you can feel it once had life, but for every broken window in its battered factories, another breath of youth and vibrancy escapes.All of Portland’s three lakes are disused quarries.Driving back to the mountains we stop at the Lollybug. This was mainly an interest because it burnt down and was rebuilt in the last year or so. I wanted to find out what was so impressive about this shop that it would be rebuilt, but it turns out it is just like any other lolly shop – soulless and chaotic, trading on frantic consumerism obliquely covered by false nostalga. We purchase nothing, take a novelty photograph, and go up the mountain, passing Barry the Vic Pass Goat, and have a coffee and 2 scones for $25 in Mount Vic, where only after eating we are told the eftpos machine doesn’t work. Yes Days are expensive, irreverent spaces in life that celebrate amble.The one, the only (second), the book chart.
There are three main reasons for a yes day:
1. Yes days, are first and foremost a method to incentivize the burndown of the immense book backlog we have spread across two suburbs. Caitlin may disagree with this intent, but it is the real origin. People may think I am exaggerating, but Caitlin has likely thousands of unread books. When people visit, they may mistakenly assume that Caitlin’s walls of books are partially a collection to revisit in the future or pride in having been read. Nothing is further from the truth. Every book she finishes reading she gives away. Every book you see is untouched. This is most likely pragmatism than anything altruistic, as without giving books away, she cannot fit in any new ones.
2. Yes days and the book chart are damn cute. Especially all the bird stickers on this just completed chart.
3. Yes days are a celebration of literature and the adventures they inspire. They are a time to genuflect on the joy that books bring, by creating your own stories and cleansing the body for a new cycle of novels.
Also, my favourite part of the Yes Day that was not mentioned was seeing a Water Rat going to town on a nice big trout in one of the Portland quarry lakes. I am never sure about Rodents as you never know if they are introduced rats and they all sort of look the same. However I want to be proud of and celebrate our native Rodents. This one was out in the middle of the day and swimming around so seemed to tick all the boxes to be a native Water Rat. Which made me happy.
Update #1: Garry the mountain goat of Victoria Pass has sadly passed since this post. He was hit by a truck doing what he loved most in this world. Eating weeds sprouting from the curb.
Update #2: The Portland Bookshop as of early Nov 2024 is permanently closed. We chatted to the cafe next door (open 9-12 on Saturday only) and apparently the owners just stopped paying rent and after a while, just left one day and went MIA. This is more confusing as they also apparently bought a house in Portland, but no one has seen them for months. I have updated Google Maps with this information and the algorithm praised me for it.
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