If you deconstruct a trip you're about to take, analyzing each element to its finest detail, you can talk yourself out of going anywhere at all. Ever. This is exactly what is happening to our planned September getaway.
It was supposed to be a four day escape. I love escapes! By a lake, no less. In a cabin that is tastefully and minimally decorated. With Adirondacks outside, a fire pit, two kayaks. In the woods. We would hike the nearby Ice Age Trails. Imagine, a new trail segment! We would do outdoor dining. Maybe watch a movie on the big screen TV after watching the sun set over the lake.
Bliss, right?
Now comes the hatchet: the drive each way is close to 3.5 hours. That means that of those four days one whole day (7 hours!) would be spent in the car. The water quality in the lake is supposed to be okay, but there is some uncertainty, as the last test will have been done a few days ago. Things change. The lake itself is not large. Kayaking on it will take no time at all. Ho hum. The nearby town offers maybe four eateries, though one of them is McDonalds so that doesn't count. The other three have websites with pictures of brown foods (deep fried) and burgers (Ed and I do not eat burgers). There seem to be no outdoor dining options so we would have to do all take out. The vaccination rates in those counties are low and the infection rates are, therefore, high. Maybe twice as high as where we live. And mainly I have a reluctant partner next to me. He'll go. For me. He'll tolerate it. For me.
So where is the fun?
Despite the drawbacks, I would have opted to go. I just love the excitement of a new place and I have missed it terribly in the years (yes years!) of this pandemic.
We'll do a staycation instead. I like nothing about that word: it makes no sense when you are retired to "cut out going to work and to stay home." We have cut out at least the obligatory paid labor and we do stay home. That we'll add some less typical for us activities will be great, but honestly, when we are here, we do what we choose to do. Mixing in more coffee shops or hikes will be nice if we do that, but it wont exactly replace waking up to different sounds, sights and smells.
Never mind. We are healthy and happy. What's one more year without a trip, right?
The day is bright, cool and beautiful.
(Breakfast)
(Fallen tree to chop up, meadow to plant...)
I'd read in an email newsletter from one of our farmers something that pushed me to reconsider this day. Here's what Jillian from the Small Family Farms writes, with appreciation for all the physical work they do on their farm:
I recently read a book called Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman that is a new inspiration in my life. She is a biomechanist who writes about the importance of natural movements, primal movements, in our lives opposed to actual exercise. She talks about the importance of reaching, squatting, climbing, swinging, and just plain moving your body. She writes about how our blood circulates naturally with movement, our joints are strengthened when we walk barefoot on uneven ground. Our pelvic floors, our knees and our ankles thank us when we use them to their greatest potentials.
Well, it was just the push I needed to get me back into the flower beds for some serious weeding, clipping and digging. It's the perfect weather for it and so I reach for my shovel, my clippers and my bucket and get to work. Reaching, squatting, bending, just like my primal ancestors intended. All day long. With few pauses.
And that is all I do.
Frittata for dinner: cauliflower, mushrooms and corn. Then couch time, where I can hardly stay awake.
With love.
