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Bringing Vacation Back Home

As we head into fall and I think about the busy new season before us, the advice from the guy who takes your money at the Fremont dump echoes through my thoughts: “Make your vacation your vocation,” he commanded.

The dump is the perfect place to encounter an oracle. You’re open to suggestions and fresh ideas, having finally succeeded in parting with worthless junk that’s been sucking up your basement or rotting in your garden, possibly for years. The slate is cleaner. Life is going to be different.

And then on your way out the gate, 478 pounds lighter, you hear this catchy philosophy. “Make your vacation your vocation.” It should be a bumper sticker or the title of a self-help book. It’s probably both, but I found with a little surfing that it was Mark Twain who first promised that this was the secret to success.

On our summer road trip, we contemplated Twain’s idea as we wound through the Siskiyou and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. My personal conclusion was that as much as I love to travel and spend time high in the mountains, I’ve no interest in trading my current career as publisher for wilderness guide, campground host or anything else that would allow me to live above 5,000 feet. My job is far from a holiday, but it is deeply satisfying and I’m a long way from trading it in for something else.

Still, the return home from the trip was bittersweet, as it often is. My own bed felt wonderful and our garden was still a colorful, green haven thanks to the July rain and a helpful neighbor. But it was downright painful to have to face my computer and resume the frenetic multi-tasking necessary to keeping this magazine up and running.

Sadly, I’m one of those people whom technology and a home office have helped turn into a workaholic. I check e-mail while making dinner; I look at PDF files after the kids are in bed and often spend Saturday or Sunday morning typing away at my screen.

And like many other women, when I’m not working at work, I’m working at home, trying to make a dent in the laundry pile and keeping the fridge full.

So, I’ve adopted an alternative slogan to the Twain epigram: take your vacation home with you. By this I mean that I’m going to try very hard to let up on the workaholic thing this fall and find a little time for myself. My mission is to make at least one aspect of our vacation a part of my regular schedule. Karen Rudd’s article in this issue on making art a part of your life gave me the idea. I like to sketch when visiting new places. I’m not very good, but it is one of the most relaxing and satisfying things I know how to do. So I’ve started to make time to keep at it now that we’re back. I may even sign up for a drawing class.

But my idea isn’t about adding more to our busy schedules. It’s about remembering that we all need to take time to unwind and have fun. And this shouldn’t just be something we have to pack up and leave town to do.

Marianne Scholl
Publisher & Co-Founder

©September 2007 Caliope Publishing Company