Nick's Reviews > As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

The best of the 3 autobiographical books poet Laurie Lee wrote, this one concerns his walking tour of Spain just before the Spanish Civil War. He was penniless, young, and open to experience, and as a result, he had a wonderful time wandering from town to town playing his violin for small change, food and lodging. It worked, in that long-gone time, and the descriptions of Spain before the wars are heartbreaking because Lee is so good at bringing to life all that we've lost without sentimentalizing that time at all. Serendipity plays heavily in Lee's wanderings, and it made me keenly aware of how jam-packed my life is with work, and chores, and family and everything else -- and how little room there is in it for serendipity. At least the kind that comes from wandering with no set agenda, timetable, or to-dos.