Silly question. I’m sure most of us (unless we hate being aimless and want every hour of our day scheduled – I know some do) can answer this quickly. I have in the past and since summer is drawing to an end, just in case you haven’t taken yours yet, I thought I would encourage you. Maybe you need a 2nd one?! 11 Reasons to go on vacation (see the original post here). 1. to look up and see 2. to look down and pay attention 3. to remember wonder 4. to awaken awe 5. to meet new people 6. to stretch the boundaries of your imagination
7. to get lost (my trip to Yellowstone) 8. to build new foundations 9. to strengthen old traditions 10. to remember who you really are 11. to come home and remember why you love where you live 12. lagniappe: to take time to write (from Rehobeth Beach, 2009): 1. 9/1/09 Rehobeth Beach, DE: it is 67degrees, a harbinger of Fall approaching in the early morning. From the North a strong wind whips up whitecaps, waves race each other to shore, seafoam somersaults across wet sand. The world is populated only by Plovers, a variety of gulls, and me, standing rapt before the pound of surf. Salty spray wets my hair and my eyelashes.
The sun is rising. From my stomach something else is rising: unnameable and full of yearning; a recognition of the power of endless water – it’s kinship with the salty fluid that runs through my own veins; the clarity of connection at a very basic level. The longing for this to last lodges in my throat, causes a sharp intake of breath, might yet manifest as tears. The seconds extend and extend. It is here that I open without thought to my true self – to the Wylde and Wise Woman I am when the stories end and really true begins. In the space desires rise, drift away. When I meet myself I am complete and perfect in my human imperfection, and it is enough. 9/2/09. I rise at 6:30, take 30 minutes shower, 15 to dress. The clock ticks steadily forward to departure. My last day here. I walk 12 yards or so to the beach. Today the wind comes directly off the water and is gently warmer than yesterday, the water no longer capped white and frothy, waves rolling over each other like puppies. I check the clock at Grotto’s Pizza. It is 10 minutes to 7. The sun climbs. The sky is distantly robin’s egg blue; closer in, dense charcoal gray clouds sit motionless despite the wind, place holders as far as I can see – all the way to
the horizon. The sun slides behind the largest cloud, directly in front of me. I look down, following a rollicking wave with my eyes, wonder if it will reach my toes. I look up – there are rainbow prisms all around the cloud’s edges. Not impressed by the sun’s virtuosity, a young Laughing Gull, all brown and white feathers, sidles up to me hoping for a morning snack. Finding none, it walks down the beach between the perfect tires tracks of earlier beach vehicles, leaving its own trail. Every day the sun follows its track across the sky. Some times you can watch the long arc as light moves into dark; some days you can’t. The wind blows or doesn’t blow; the water is calm or it isn’t calm. The shore birds find food or they don’t. Rainbows appear and disappear even when no one is watching. I turn. The clock over Grotto’s Pizza still says 10 minutes to 7. This is not magic. That clock always says 10 minutes to 7. Sometimes thing work better when they don’t work as originally planned Wylde Women’s Wisdom:
To the wylde divinity in each of us
even when the way is dark and full of brambles
and we are traveling blind
