Relative Something

It is Thursday and I am now just two days away from a week of vacation, when I will be free from the demands of the day-job. Since I didn’t get a chance to take my usual week off for a bike trip back in June, and Cyndie and I didn’t take the 3 weeks off in July to travel to Portugal, I have claimed a week in August, while there is still some summer in the air. I intend to catch up on some sleep. I plan to watch some movies. I hope to create some art. I’ll probably take some pictures, and swim in the lake. Most important, I won’t be at work. I will be at our favorite getaway place, at the lake in the woods of Wisconsin.

One of the movies I want to watch is a repeat. I want to see “Dances With Wolves” again. Last night we stumbled on a television broadcast of the making of Dances With Wolves. That movie was made over 20 years ago. My, how time flies. It was interesting to see interviews with people who have aged since the filming and to recognize the passing of that amount of time by the changes in their faces. Obviously, the actors who were just kids at the time, show the most dramatic transformation.

I am a big fan of the movie. I do not feel swayed by any of the negative things I have heard in relation to it. The back story of the making of the movie revealed a fair number of instances where the project seemed unlikely to succeed. It is a marvel that all the potential hurdles were overcome and the final result received such acclaim.

I am looking forward to seeing it again. I am also looking forward to overcoming any hurdles that may arise to threaten my planned week of vacation. I am enjoying the simple pleasure of anticipation for the week that is to come. It is the first step in a process of getting the most out of time-off from work.

So here it is, Monday again. The past weekend was one of those, for me, that was wonderfully enjoyable (except the part where I worked Saturday morning). But, as enjoyable as it was, it wore me out more than a week of work. I need a vacation.

Even after sleeping in a bit (and not even getting out of bed until about noon on Sunday) my activity of the second half of the day, on top of the long day of activity on Saturday, however pleasant, left me exhausted by the end of the weekend. And this, just at the time that I must embark on another week at the day-job. I am ever so grateful to have the opportunity to work at my day-job, and to receive the benefits that come with having a job. Don’t get me wrong. It may truly be as simple as my being due for a vacation.

I didn’t get to go on my annual bike trip this summer and our planned trip to Portugal was canceled after Cyndie broke her knee. I never got around to replacing those losses with a plan for something else.

So, the next question Cyndie and I are pondering is, what vacation? On our tightened budget, due to her being out of work all summer, this will likely lead to a week-long visit to our paradise at her family’s vacation home in Wisconsin.

There is a new hammock up there that I have hardly had a chance to break in yet. At this point in my life, that is sounding like just the kind of activity I would like to take on for a week at the end of summer.

With more things to be done than there are minutes to do them, the days are flying past me in a blur now. The day-job is extra-taxing for me this week, due to a key employee being on vacation. It is one less person for me to rely on –from the all-important role of final inspection– and double the workload I need to accomplish daily.

Meanwhile, Cyndie is on the road through Wednesday. After we both get off work on Thursday, our schedule has us joining a group of the Hays family relatives attending a live theater performance of “How to Speak Minnesotan” to see one of my nephews in the show.

The days feel like they are passing faster than ever. I sure hope they slow down significantly once we reach the days of our trip!

I am preparing to travel to Portugal with Cyndie in a few days. It was back in January of 2010 that we began plotting this adventure and now we are packing our bags. It is a very exciting time. This trip is special for us in that it is not just a random touristy jaunt to a foreign country. The seeds for this magical adventure were planted almost 8 years ago in an online discussion on the topic of trees.

I have mentioned in my posts here in the past about my activity with the virtual community of Brainstorms. It is there that I first met our connection in Portugal. He shares an affinity for trees, and my interactions with him in that online community started with discussions on the planting of new trees and expanded over the years to include stories about our children and details about the rest of our lives.

For years I read about the work going on to maintain the place he referred to as, “the farm.” He admitted that no real farming occurs there, but the 22 acre property includes forested areas, some with cultivated stands of pine trees, a variety of terraces that have grape vines, olive trees, peaches, dates, and oranges. There is a greenhouse and a good variety of flowering plants, especially one of our host’s prizes, the camellia.

After he wrote about the completed renovations of one of the old original buildings, which he described as a “writer’s cottage,” (complete with pictures of the new roof going up on the structure of hand-cut granite blocks) I wanted to offer my services as ‘farm-hand’ in the biggest way. Then he went and added horses, an addition that I knew would appeal to Cyndie.

Last January, we offered up the idea of our visiting Portugal to help with chores on the farm. I asked how long a stay would be appropriate. We couldn’t have been more pleased with his reply… A minimum of a week, preferably a month. We were able to make it 2 weeks. It becomes a reality in a few days.

If I were really going to live in the moment, I don’t think I would be able to successfully pull off some of the activities that I weave into my work days; specifically, my morning soccer, and commuting to work on my bicycle. Both require a lot of pre-planning.

On Sunday evening, as I was packing my stuff in preparation for soccer in the morning, it occurred to me that if I was going to ride my bike to work on Tuesday, I needed to be planning for that, as well. I like to leave a pair of shoes and some clothes at work so that I don’t need to haul them on my bike. So, on a day that I drive, I take a bag of extra things. That meant decisions about what I would want to have on Tuesday needed to be made on Sunday night, at the same time that I was already trying to decide what I wanted to wear for Monday.

I’ve never been fond of deciding what to wear, but I truly dislike selecting the clothes I will wear for the following day, on the night before. My poor wife will gladly testify of my ongoing query each night before bed, asking her what shirt I should select for work tomorrow. Maybe I need to fill my closet with shirts of one type. What color should I select? Same one as the day before. The only color available.

Making the decision on the night before is hard enough, but the morning can be even harder for me. You see, I get up so early on the days I play soccer, that it serves me best to minimize the need for decisions like what to wear. I guess I can admit to a fear that something essential risks being forgotten. I try to do all the deciding on the night before, choosing the athletic wear needed for the game, and the things necessary for showering, as well as the clothes I will wear for work that day. I get all packed and ready to go in the evening so that in the morning, all I need to do is eat a little breakfast, make my lunch for the day, brush my teeth and head out to play.

That system has proved quite successful, thus far, except for the side-effect of my repeated pleas for advice on shirt choice in the evenings. I’ve always come through with enough socks, underwear, belt, and obvious pants and shirt. Now that my cycling season is upon me again, I need to start thinking 2-days in advance about what I will wear to work.

I’ll let this be incentive to practice intense observance of the moments I will be pedaling, as compensation for the many moments I spend thinking ahead a few days.

How in the heck does a person plan for spontaneity? Beats me. I think that I probably do a small amount of this without ever admitting to myself that it is what I’m doing. But it barely makes any sense to me. There is a mutual exclusivity to the two words. However, there is something logical within the concept. It seems to me to be a reasonable philosophy to prepare for surprises.

I saw a quote recently, that I only recollect enough to paraphrase, but the thought is simple: consider practicing being unattached to outcomes. It struck me as being a way to prepare for spontaneity. A way to allow any outcome to materialize for a given situation without being fixated on an expected result. I don’t trust that I will be able to make a sudden leap to not being attached to outcomes, but I am looking forward to giving it a little practice. We’ll see if there is any improvement in my preparedness for all things spontaneous that might happen to pop up.

Yesterday morning, Cyndie and I were preparing to get together with her folks for brunch, to hear stories about their recent cruise in the vicinity of Turkey. I simply followed Cyndie’s direction that she was cooking at our home and we would bring food over to their house. We loaded up the car and headed out just about 15 minutes behind schedule. When we reached the street where they live, I slowed down to let an oncoming car pass before I drove out and around a man walking with a dog, just a bit into my lane. With my primary attention on the pedestrian, I made only a brief glance to the passing car. The image that flashed in my mind was of Cyndie’s dad’s hair. A quick analysis of the car being red, with a black roof, and a passenger in the front, had me asking Cyndie if that was her dad that just passed us. She hadn’t noticed.

We pulled into their driveway and Cyndie hopped out to check their front door. All locked up! Nobody home. That pretty much confirmed it was them I saw driving away. Seems they were headed to our house for brunch. We turned around and high-tailed it back home. Cyndie was pretty upset over the miscommunication, but in the end, we all seemed able to frame it as humorous and not a critical failure. We did try to work back to discover where the confusion arose, but devoid any concrete evidence to the contrary, the general consensus was that neither Cyndie, nor her father, ever explicitly stated a planned location. Instead, each proceeded based on the perceptions they had in each of their own minds; Cyndie, of going to her parent’s house and her dad, of coming to ours.

It was a classic opportunity for individuals to allow situational circumstance to upset them and bring about a range of reactions with the potential to spiral into all manner of angst. None of us fell for it. We just acknowledged that it happened, laughed about it, and enjoyed a wonderful brunch of catching up on stories from their trip.