Book Review: *When Wanderers Cease to Roam* by Vivian Swift

Back-of-the-book-blurb:  Following a lifetime of trekking across the globe, Vivian Swift racked up twenty-three temporary addresses in twenty years, finally dropped her well-worn futon mattress and rucksack in a small town on the edge of the Long Island Sound.  She spent the next decade quietly taking stock of her life, her immediate surroundings, and, finally, what it means to call a place a home.

The result is When Wanderers Cease to Roam.  Filled with watercolors of beautiful local landscapes, seasonal activities, and small, overlooked pleasures of easy living, each chapter chronicles, month by month, the beautifully mundane perks of remaining at home.

She is Too Fond of Books’ review:  When Wanderers Cease to Roam, is a delightful book – part memoir, part inspiration.  It is unique not only for what is written, but also for how it is written.  Vivian Swift has hand-lettered every word in the book, including the copyright page!  This personal effort, coupled with her whimsical drawings and insight into the pleasure of “staying put,” makes this a thoughtful gift for all occasions.

The book is divided into chapters for each month of the year, complete with seasonal watercolors, pen-and-ink drawings, and a few examples of Swift’s needlework.  She shows the reader how simple observation can become a delight, from the various types of snow, rain, or mud that she sees to the color of the sky at sunrise throughout the year.

Swift takes elaborate mental notes as she walks daily through her new hometown on the Long Island Shore; she enjoys catching up on Village gossip with the neighbors, collecting “lost and found” items (mittens, notes, photographs, keys) from along her route, and cataloging the subtle but significant changes she observes.

In her journal, Swift combines brief passages and poetry with beautiful illustrations to accompany her thoughts.  In March she tells us:

I collect tea cups the way I used to collect days in foreign countries. 

There’s a tea cup, made of amber-colored glass, that’s just like a shard of the Sahara glinting on my shelf. 

The pale blue one – that’s like a cup of Nottingham rain reflecting the face of a handsome stranger I was flirting with one afternoon 30 years ago. 

Midnight blue Limoges is January in Paris, a rare snow fall in the city, cold kisses, and Jean-Claude.

My tea cup collection is my passport.

Later on the first days of fall-like weather in September, Swift makes orange marmalade and her new kitten wants to “help.”  Swift scoops the kitten into the pocket of her apron and thinks:

… of all the things that the Earth’s six billion people are doing tonight to keep busy, I am probably the only person on the planet making orange marmalade with a kitten in her pocket.

I especially enjoyed Swift’s emphasis on the simple pleasures of life in her village.  She includes several excerpts from the local paper (“on Aug. 5, Village police received a report that a one-way sign on Third Avenue was moved and pointing the wrong way.  Officers corrected the sign’s placement”), which remind me so much of the sweet gentle stories that make our local police blotter.  I was disappointed that our recent call to the fire department didn’t get a mention last week; we were bumped for “officers responded to a 911 call reporting chickens on the side of Lexington Road near the Lincoln town line.  The caller was concerned the chickens may be struck by a motor vehicle.”  May our concerns never be greater than chickens crossing the road!

Travel memoirs are dime a dozen, but this memoir of staying put is priceless. When Wanderers Cease to Roam  will stand out in your memory, on your bookshelf, and on a coffee table.  What are the simple pleasures in your life?

Author Vivian Swift is a freelance writer living on Long Island Sound; this is her first book.  To see a few page excerpts, and samples of the illustrations in When Wanderers Cease to Roam, visit her website.

To read other reviews of When Wanderers Cease to Roam, visit Caite at A Lovely Shore Breeze, Wendi at Wendi’s Book Corner, and Kathy at Bermudaonion’s Weblog.