My family didn't take vacations when I was young. My father was not a vacation guy; he was about as far from Clark Griswold as you can imagine in terms of wanting the family to be a certain way, or building silly/heartfelt traditions, or anything like that. I remember visiting my grandparents on both sides a few times when I was young; I remember going to summer camp; I remember going skiing in the winter. I don't remember going somewhere other than our home during the summer for relaxation and sightseeing. It just wasn't a thing we did.
These days, my husband and I rarely take vacations. We went on a honeymoon in 2011. We went on a trip a few years ago to the state of Washington for a friend's wedding, and extended the stay for a week in which we utterly, totally relaxed. I read Proust and stayed off Facebook. We looked at the view and ate croissants. It was wondrous. Last fall we went to the UK, but due to a miscalculation on my part, that trip turned out to be more stressful than relaxing, and some of it felt like work.
But that's it. We've been together for 12 years and have taken two full-relaxation vacations, one of which was our honeymoon.
Most of our vacation time at present is spent seeing family. Which is lovely, but not relaxing. Relaxing, to me, means zero expectations set or met. It means no sightseeing or activities unless in an equal ratio to napping in a hammock. It means no need to wear pants or makeup. Our families don't operate this way on vacation, so there's always adjustment of expectations at the beginning of a trip. I must remind myself that hammock time may be my priority on vacation, but it isn't my hosts'.
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We have friends who go on trips to Japan and Italy who bustle through their weeks there, seeing things and doing things and going to fancy dinners and meeting new people. I have an acquaintance who spent his honeymoon on an African safari. I respect and sometimes love those people, but I still consider them slightly nuts. For me those would be stressful vacations, which is a contradiction in terms, right? Vacation is for fun and relaxation. Information intake is not relaxing to me. I do information intake for a living.
The arc of every Vacation movie involves learning to reconnect with family in spite of all the superficial trappings of whatever the relevant holiday trip is and means. Leaving out those trappings in the first place saves me a bunch of steps.
So here I am on vacation, relaxing to about half the degree I ideally would. Which is great; it's still relaxation. But since I've started working from home, I've lived in such wonderful quiet, with so much time to let my own thoughts bounce around the inside of my head. Being with people who expect my attention is more of an oddity than it is the norm now. So I'm looking forward to getting back home, to the peace and quiet to which I've become accustomed, rather than being here on vacation with animated loved ones who have lots to say and ask.
Out in the world (vacation does not stop bylines):
An essay about non-standard writing reference books at CRAFT. I really enjoyed writing this essay, because you wouldn't believe how often I've tried to insert these books into online advice threads only to be buried by "On Writing On Writing On Writing".
I reviewed New Poets of Native Nations for sinkhole. I called it a perfect anthology and I'm not exaggerating. Buy it. Also, I love reviewing for sinkhole, and hope to do lots more of it.
I reviewed The Blurry Years, by Eleanor Kriseman, for the Masters Review. It was an unusual book. The editor let me get away with a lot of vaguenesses, which I wrote in so I wouldn't spoil the reading experience. I'll say this: the book has a scenario in it that I have never seen in any other book, ever. If you like coming-of-age novels, particularly about girls, don't miss this one.
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