Summer Vacation

Liz at the Beach, we were looking at tidepools

What is summer vacation for?  Although back a few days I’ve been struggling to maintaining my vacation mindset, sleeping in, taking long walks, staying unplugged, reading a novel a day, enjoying the moment, letting the “to do” rest, and trying to establish new routines. 

What I’ve found is sleeping in is easy, but conflicts with trying to establish new routines, like getting up early to see the sun rise.  The long walks are fun, relaxing, fit with enjoying the moment and good exercise.  Submerging into a novel of an afternoon is an exercise of the mind and a nice workout for the imagination.  Letting the old “to do” list languish is one of the enjoyable fundamentals of maintaining a vacation mindset.  The dilemma springs from setting up new routines, which sprout new “to do” lists, which stand on the sagging shoulders of the waiting old “to do” lists.  

Not surprising, staying unplugged is the hardest.  I’m in the “geezer” age group born in the time of radio and black and white movies.  Now the world for me is almost completely connected by technology.  Computers and the internet are plugged in daily life in how I communicate, in how I entertain myself and others, in how I learn.  Unplugged means being absent.  The screen flicker, the din and the rumble of the world is quieted.  Solitude accepted, solitude savored, an essence of the vacation mindset.  But the pull to reconnect is strong, a riptide sucking me back to the cyber sea.