Interpretation by Leslie Anne Stewart
“A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.” —Earl Wilson
I’m just going to say it… We all need a vacation right now! At least from the news, which, if you let it, will break your spirit before the coffee is brewed. Today, I sip the caffeinated liquid and look at the image above from Leslie Anne Stewart and it helps me to breathe more deeply. I can smell those leaves and see those birds. She’s taking in what’s beautiful.
Including herself.
But setting aside time to take it all in can be a real challenge. Oh, I’ll do it after laundry or dishes or after I clean the toilet and fix that leak, or rake or dust or rearrange my collection of grandma’s porcelain figurines.
It’s so easy to put off self-nurture.
For me, getting out of the house is the antidote. Way, way, way out of the house. Across the world. Across the country. Which is where I’m at right now—in the hinterlands of the Utah desert. It’s one of my happy places. It’s a place where I can collect my thoughts and welcome the coffee along with the dust —in my hair and on my clothes— and I just don’t care. It’s a place where I learn and grow and breathe and gain the perspective that I need to return home and clean the toilet with a sense of gratitude.
Everyone needs a vacation. If I could send this whole country on a vacation, I’d do it! People are tired, and brow beaten, and angry, and tired. Did I say tired? People are tired. A little time away can soften us up because…
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” —Mark Twain
But then again — COVID. So unless you’re a goose the flights will have to wait, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be nice to yourself. Or to others. I’m not always great at either one. I’m tired and brow beaten and angry too. But I’m trying. I’m trying.
I’m trying.
XO-Michelle