Going on vacation two weekends in a row is to be applauded.  It is a decadence I can’t really imagine planning on purpose, but fates aligned for a friend and family vacation one weekend, followed by three whole days alone with my husband and all capped with a girls weekend visiting friends.  Basically, these last two weeks were like a half a year’s worth of fun smooshed altogether.  I don’t regret a minute of it.

Last week’s giveaway was sticky buns for father’s day to my dad, but then I followed that up with sticky buns for the dad’s on our friends and family cabining vacation, and then another round to be packed and sent with love (along with my kids) to my father in law.  I loved the sticky buns, but after 3 separate rounds, I was ready to get back to the basics of just some simple bread for this week’s giveaway.  Good thing I was planning my girls weekend where I knew there would be much need of carbs to go with the cheese and fun that no doubt would be consumed.  I decided to again go with the basic bread that is almost a no-knead style, but using my wild starter.  I am starting to understand the dough a bit better and feel more comfortable working with its signals and its patterns–when it wants to rest when it has rested enough, and when it is ready for the next step in the process.  In short, I am dialing it all in.  Learning its secrets.  There is a very specific joy I find from figuring out just the way I like to do things.  The way I think they work best.

In the same way, our normal patterns of life develop.  We like the way we make our coffee, we like that we make our bed and fold down the top just so, and we like where we sit on the couch or arrange the pillows in just a specific way.  In short, it is easy to settle into life and develop routines and patterns.  There is nothing specifically wrong with this, but it can be limiting to your horizons.

Changing things up every now and again has such an invigorating effect, and nowhere does that seem more apparent then when I head out of my home for a small vacation.  Going on a little vacation, you know things will be different.  In fact, that is the entire point.  To visit, to see, to do things you don’t normally do.  But along with that, you have these other small changes that are part of the package.  You don’t have the exact spoon you usually use for stirring your coffee in the morning, or you don’t have your usual mug.  It is silly how these little changes–not big enough to generally even seem like anything really, can just create a different cadence to your day that really leaves all possibilities (or most I should say!) on the table for the rest of the day.  The other reason a short vacation is good for this is that you do not have the time to establish new routines and rhythms, which I find I am very capable of quickly.  Give me a week somewhere and I can find ways to nest in.

I think the different rhythms of getting away create a unique opportunity to take in the world completely new.  Not that side-splitting laughter and plenty of leisure time don’t help too.  They do, they absolutely do.  But in a way, I think those are made richer by the unfamiliarity surrounding them. The uniqueness you feel when you are with friends you don’t normally see, in a place you are not always in, taking the time you don’t normally have, and it is as if you know specific memories are going to be made.  You laugh and laugh until tears stream down your face and your stomach aches and no sound is possible as you gasp for breath.  You know this is a moment that will not soon be forgotten!  Or, if you are out and about on a little getaway, it feels like everything is new– I swear even your usual at Starbucks can seem novel.  You are more open to meeting new and interesting people.  You might stumble into an art studio and culinary antique shop like I did and meet Julia and John of Kings Beach who ran a bakery for forty plus years, and their parents before them.  Or you may ask questions at the local coffee shop to the young roaster, and he tells you about how he likes to roast the beans and lets you look at them before and after, and you glimpse his passion.

I don’t really have a point beyond vacation is good.  Getting out of your normal routine is good.  And laughter with old friends is definitely, definitely good.  But maybe I do have a point.  Maybe it is that these things are not just good, but they are necessary.   They are necessary to refresh and awaken the mind and to change up the rhythm of your life.  So not that you needed me to, but I am going to humbly suggest that you get out of your everyday routine and see what you find.  It doesn’t need to be grand, but it can still change your horizons.

PS.  After I wrote this I realized how many times I mention coffee.  I realize I sound like I am on the verge of needing an intervention or seeming like the world’s most type A coffee drinker with preferred spoons and mugs.  I swear I am not…but I am off to pour myself a cup!