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Time to Do Nothing

7/30/2012

Summer is finally, undeniably here. On an Internet gardening site the advice was, “Don't forget to include some of the most important of summer's garden activities this month: Make time for reading a book, chillaxin' with friends, playing a little music, napping in the shade . . . ”
          Since coming home a week ago we’ve managed to do just that, plus taking walks and watching the Olympics. Thursday we had a backyard party, inviting neighbors from the seven or eight houses surrounding us. We’re so lucky--they’re all helpful, friendly, down-to-earth people. Not one of them blasts rock music or collects junk cars in their front yard.

       Summertime means easy living. Yet every now and then a little voice whispers that I should be doing something. Thinking about the next big project now that the novel is finished . . . weeding the front path . . . doing the dirty laundry from vacation . . . creating a photo essay on English gardens for our Garden Club website. The little voice reminds me that days are slipping by and I’m not showing a profit.

      Frankly, I had to rouse myself even to write this blog. It's not as if responsibilities disappear from view. The basement is calling to say that it needs spiffing up. I’m just not answering the phone.

Treating Yourself Beautifully

7/23/2012

           Back from England and a fascinating trip. Cool, often rainy, but that didn’t keep us from seeing everything we wanted--many beautiful gardens (Sissinghurst to the woman down the street in Marnhull), Wells, Winchester, and Canterbury cathedrals, and writers’ homes and gardens from Thomas Hardy to Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill to Rudyard Kipling, Vanessa Bell to T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia). They all lived so creatively, so well!

       Visiting T.S. Eliot’s remains in the church in East Coker, we stopped to ask directions and were invited in for coffee by a lovely British couple. Quite by accident, Tom and I saw the Olympic torch being carried through the streets of Canterbury. We visited Chafecombe from which my father’s family immigrated in the 1600s, and passed through Salisbury and Amesbury which my mother’s family left around the same time. As Tom pointed out, this makes me related to a few thousand other people--do the math.

   While I was gone my friend Anne posted an interesting piece on her blog (anne-otations.me) in which she wondered why we don’t treat ourselves better, why we too often live in what I think of as “survival mode.” She talks about holding onto a phone that doesn’t make outgoing calls, an old computer that doesn’t serve her well as a writer.   “This isn’t miserliness,” she writes, “for when my adult children need something I unhesitatingly fork over the money. So why this trauma when it comes to purchasing something for myself? Is it guilt? Negative self-esteem? ‘Do I deserve . . ?’”

   We had an example of this flying Virgin Airlines, a wonderful airline. On the way over they “bumped” us to a row with just two seats, larger and with more legroom, so that a family could sit together in our original coach row of four across. So when they asked us at the airport if we wanted to return in larger seats (at a cost of 30 pounds each) we didn’t hesitate to say yes. We had a wonderful trip home; they passed out lunch menus, and served a miniature tea before we arrived at JFK. Ironically, in survival mode, I originally chose them because they offered the best deal.

             But I’ve been moving out of survival mode for years. We no longer fly at inconvenient times (very early morning or late at night) just to save money, or rent cars without a GPS--driving on the “wrong” side of the road or deciphering signs in another language is challenge enough. Survival mode may feel virtuous and thrifty, but too often it’s not worth the discomfort. If you can’t think of a justifiable reason, “Because I can” usually works.

Travel Traumas

7/2/2012

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            A good article in this Sunday’s NY Times Travel Section by Matt Richtel on Vacation Sabotage. A lot of the points were for people still working who have a hard time disconnecting from their jobs and electronic devices, getting relaxed, and worrying about “re-entry,” which is no longer my particular problem. But one part of the article still rings true for me:

      Don’t Prepare for Your Own Death
          Matt Richtel starts out, “Before I go on vacation, even for a week, I prepare as though I’m headed to the coroner. I empty the in-box, clean the piles on the desk, put away all the laundry, dust. On the face of it I’m just getting my personal effects in order so that, presuming I survive my vacation, I also spend it worry-free, liberated to enjoy things to the fullest. But in the process, experts say, I am also significantly raising the stakes for my impending trip.”
          He goes on to link preparation with over-expectations about the trip, which is not part of my problem--I’ve rarely had a vacation I didn’t love. I never have the feeling that I have to see every museum, cathedral, or historic site in a particular place since I “might never be back again,” or that I have to go to the beach every day on another type of vacation to “get my money’s worth.” In the long run, what does it matter? It’s the experience you’re having that counts, and if it’s sipping cappucino while reading a book on the front porch or in a French cafe, that’s what you’ll remember fondly.
      But part of me acts as if I will never get home again, something akin to the awe I feel when we turn down our street after being away for several weeks and see the house still there. This year I realized that, though Andy and Robin have our wills, there is a lot of specific financial information they should have as well, so I’m mailing them copies of that. If I have time, I’m going to go through other papers, books etc. in my office and discard anything now outdated so that no one else has to.
   The last time Houdini left his beloved house he wept, having a premonition that he would never see it again. He challenged people in his audience to punch him in the stomach as hard as they could, but this time he didn’t prevail. His premonition came true.
      But who knows? He may have wept every time he left home with that same premonition, and nobody bothered to comment on that.
             The point is that getting ready for vacation is a good time to think about what you’re leaving behind, if only temporarily.
              Since I'll be leaving the Internet behind--I don't know if the houses we're renting in England even have WiFi--this may be the last Monday Morning Challenge for a couple of weeks.

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Time to Do Nothing

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