Ok. So here I am in Palma Nova on the island of Mallorca (or Majorca depending on whether you are spelling it the English or Spanish way) in Spain. I have been here now 6 days. I have heard people, more than once and usually parents say that it's a lot of work to go on vacation - sometimes more work than just staying at home. I have been thinking about this a bit ever since first beginning to pack for this trip a week ago today. I began packing around 3 Thursday afternoon and after a few hours my husband said something to me about how I had all the next morning to pack and I told him I didn't. He told me I did and I felt the need then to explain to him why I felt otherwise - that I was packing for me, for Sam (our 5 year-old son) and also getting the apartment & other household things in order for us being gone for 2 weeks. He was packing for himself and thinking about only himself and his bike stuff (as we are in Spain for a bicycle training camp for him). It wasn't until the next day he agreed with me.
Poor me, right? All that packing and getting ready to be rewarded by being in a gorgeous part of Spain for 2 weeks?
And, it is gorgeous here. I have been to Spain on the Coastal Blanca before (between Valencia and Benidorm) twice and I think Mallorca is more beautiful. I have seen a little bit of downtown Palma and yesterday took a bus excursion with Sam to see the most northern part of the island and most beautiful coast - the coast de Pollenca, which is the first spot to have tourism in 1926 and also Formentor, the most northern city on the island. Tourism is the number one source of income here in Mallorca now I've been told and between April and October they see some 9 million tourists. We are here just before high season begins and the apartment within our large hotel is on the quiet side. I have seen only one family with a small little girl.
I was tired when we arrived Saturday having not really slept much on the three flights over but didn't really have more than just some standard jet lag and it didn't keep me from walking Sam 5 minutes to the beach where we have already spent a lot of time.
Despite the packing, unpacking, jet lag & establishing a routine with Sam in a new place, I really don't feel a sense of being on vacation neccessarily and this has gotten me thinking quite a bit about what vacation is and what I'm vacating from.
Growing up, vacations were taken with my parents and usually to places we went to on a plane for a week at least - Florida, Mexico, a Cruise. We went on many weekend visits driving 4 hours from Michigan to Ohio to see my mom's parents and my grandparents. We also went on many driving vacations for long weekends or weeks up north in Michigan, renting cabins on lakes, or to Mackinac Island, or to places in Canada even. Sometimes, a vacation was just driving a little bit and staying in a hotel with a pool for one or two days. All this I think of now as vacations more for my parents getting away from their routines of going to work 40 hours a week and tending to me and the house the rest of the time.
Vacations in my adult life didn't really happen until I got married the first time when I was living in Chicago and they were few and far between. It seemed every place I travelled in my 20's wasn't really a vacation because I didn't really have a routine life to vacate from. I was waiting tables a few times a week to make rent and changing my schedule frequently to accomodate my auditions and acting life. There was a week long trip driving with my ex-husband to the Black Hills of South Dakota and back-packing and camping in the Hills, which at the time felt life changing for me. There were visits to bed and breakfast type places to meet my parents (usually paid for by my parents) and maybe one or two overnight hotel excursions just outside Chicago for fun. We were too poor and in debt to think about taking vacations and any vacations we did take, like I said, were either paid for by parents or accrued credit card debt.
When I worked at and investment firm in my thirties for five years I had my first adult taste of what vacations felt like to the working class. I worked overtime all the time and weekends and only had 12 PTO (personal time off) days a year. Because I worked with trades, I was on when the stock market was open, or setting up trades over the weekends for Mondays. I even had to barter between Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's. When I married Dave, who at the time worked for himself out of the house it frustrated him to no end that I could not just pick up and go away when he wanted to. Before I met Dave, I dated a guy who took me to Copper Mountain in Colorado for a week where I learned to downhill ski. I was 33. 3 months after meeting Dave, we went to St. Thomas Island for a long weekend because he was standing up for a friend getting married there. That same summer, we went on a 4 day cruise to the Bahamas with his family. We honeymooned a year later at Whistler and Blackcomb Mountain skiing in Vancouver. All this while I was working full-time and every getaway truly felt just that. Like I was getting away. Vacationing. All that work at work to clear the desk and have everything in it's place before I went so nothing would fall apart while I was gone and all those piles to get through and emails when I returned. What an ego I had to think that the trading department would crumble without my presence!
Since returning to acting full-time in 2003, and now mothering full-time since 2005, we have been many places, including Spain four times, Italy, Disney World 3 times, Disney Land 1 time, Green Mountain, Vermont 5 times, Sutton Quebec twice, Niagra Falls, Stratford Shakespeare Festival loads and so many others for bike races or me visiting friends in New York or Chicago or LA. Since having Sam, there has always been so much to think about from what to bring for him in the car, on the plane, what can we buy once there, setting up a routine schedule - I have probably spent more time and energy than needed each vacation, way more, and now that Sam is 5 I bring way less than I used to.
Here's the thing. The 3 weeks prior to coming here to Spain I was relishing in gratitude for my days and how they were unfolding, driving out to Yellow Springs for yoga and writing and planning my voice-over events and coaching. It couldn't have happened at a better time because I brought with me here on this trip this awareness of my yoga practice alignment of my body, mind and spirit and it has helped me on numerous occassions so far with many little things that I think would have bothered me more had I not had this yoga practice renewal. I even brought with me my yoga mat and have fit a practice in every morning anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and mostly with Sam being Sam around me. I have come to realize that I am truly blessed for having a vacation like existence every day and only having a couple of scheduled appointments where I have to mind a clock, usually having to do with Sam getting to and from school.
So, if I am on vacation during my life every day, what is a vacation for me? Where do I go to vacate? What am I vacating from? I find myself taking with me more than just clothes to this vacation in bringing my body, mind and spiritual practice along in more than just the form of my yoga mat and strap. I have decided that life continues no matter where you are or what you call the path you are on - daily routine or vacation. Life is life and it is what I make of it no matter what my surroundings, whom I'm with or what location I'm in. This is very enlightening. It's also very freeing. It frees me from feeling bound in my mind to only feeling a sense of freedom from every day life in a few days or weeks a year. Can you imagine? Living a life of duty and responsible doing only to feel free and letting go and vacationing a few days or weeks a year? Blah! This is great!
I have created this for myself and must have wanted this a long time ago for it to have manifested this way. The power of thought is possible.
I have been handwriting a small journal every day since I have been in Spain and may transcribe it to this blog later on. It's been nice to not be in my computer every day, or my phone.
Life happens no matter what.
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