Mixed Moss

Sam asked how I am. Fair enough; I haven’t truly posted in a while because I’ve been disgruntled, and I don’t like to sound gloomy too often.

How am I? How am I. Burned out. Tired. Be-worried. In need of a vacation.

Ahh, vacation. I haven’t had one since I can’t really remember when. I went to a wedding in Michigan about a month back and we stopped at one of those road-side rest stations and I found myself looking at the map of Lake Michigan and the little glass case with local products and icons in it, like baskets and pottery and a model sailboat. And I said to myself, “when was the last time I went out of town just to relax and get away?” The job I currently have, I don’t get vacation time with for the first calendar year, and my three-day week-ends have all been taken up by attending weddings. So I literally haven’t been anywhere for just a vacation. When was it? I honestly can’t remember. I went to a week-end conference back in the Spring down in Alabama. I went to a three-day work conference last fall in Indianapolis. I did a week of hurricane relief work last summer in Houston. I went to Guatemala for an absolutely exhausting missions trip right after I got done with college last Spring– I was so emotionally and physically wiped before I even left on the trip that I’m not fully sure how I survived it, even though I did love Antigua, where we were staying. Before last Spring…well I guess I didn’t really go anywhere the year before that either. During college I usually took off over Spring break and part of Christmas break, because I am the sort of person who gets the “Travel Bug” every eight weeks and just wants to pick up and go. But last year I had to have surgery done on my feet, and they couldn’t do both at once, and there is a two-week minimum recovery time for each operation. So I had one done over Christmas and one done over Spring Break. I don’t mind saying, it sucked.

I mentioned this to one of my roommates the other day and she seemed to think I was over-reacting or lazy. Maybe I am. Maybe vacations are a luxury most people don’t get (although she had had one not two months previous). Maybe this is just life and I should get used to it. Maybe I should just suck it up and be grateful that hey, at least I have a job that’s bringing in cash and pays the bills! Maybe I should just learn to be a harder worker and to take satisfaction in that.

But I can’t. Or won’t.
The trouble is, that now I am in search of a new job. So I have no idea when I will have the money and the time for a vacation. Heck, it may be another year before I’m at that point. I could scream. But instead I’ve been painting. Lighthouses, sailboats, you name it. I’m a midwesterner– I don’t expect much. Our idea of a vacation is not the Rockies or one of the coasts. If you want mountains you go to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and if you want water you go to Lake Michigan. If I could just get five solid days in a row somewhere. Michigan, Maine, I’d take either (I’ve wanted to see Maine for several years now).
All I want to do is wander through an artsy little shore town with shops selling sun catchers and painted driftwood and all-natural shampoos and over-priced camping clothes and equipment. To sit by the water and sketch sailboats: pristine white sails against a deep blue grey glittering with lost fragments of sunlight; lovely curves stretching down to the water, like the curve in the small of a woman’s back.

Lighthouses, pillars of red black and white, symbols of all that guides and guards. Maybe in sketching an ancient, enourmous anchor resting on a pier, I can somehow catch sight once more of that which secures and holds fast my own small, hapless life in this vast sea of time.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 31st, 2006 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.