Summer Vacation (with a Side of Self-Help)

I actually managed to (mostly) not blog when I was on vacation. Can you believe it? I hardly can myself. And it was, pardon me for saying so, blissful. I mean, I still put in my thirty minutes or so deleting the 1000 spam comments each day that escape the spam filter (not an exaggeration, unfortunately) and commenting elsewhere for a few minutes a day, but mostly, I wasn't here.

Instead, I took Frances to Canada's Wonderland, where she is unfortunately still a few inches shy of the minimum height for most of the fun kiddie rides, including the toddler coaster, but where we had a great time regardless. She rode the rocket ships and the airplanes and we went on the helicopters and train together, and waited an hour to ride Scooby Doo's Haunted Mansion, and she got to ride on Scooby Doo again on the merry-go-round, and I took pictures and carried her around when she got tired of walking and wondered when I would remember that Frances can't finish an ice cream cone on her own and I'm better off getting one for us to share. Then we went to see the Dora and Boots show, and Frances joined the preschool mosh pit at the foot of the stage.

I took her to a Canada Day party and her first-ever fireworks and then listen to her ask me for the rest of the vacation if we were going to see fireworks again that day.

I brought her to the library and watched her play with other kids in the toy area while I browsed the non-fiction and got out a few titles. (I'm on a book fast until September--had I mentioned that? No new book purchases over the summer.) I got Frances her very own library card, which she brandished at other patrons. "I have a library card!" she told them excitedly in her non-library voice. "Aren't you lucky!" they told her. Later, she found a Dora book she has at home already: "I have this book at home!" she told another patron. "Wow!" they replied.

I watched her spend hours and hours playing outside with her beloved sister C.

And when she was with her Dad I spent most of a week with Greg. Back when I'd planned this vacation I was supposed to have spent the week doing a writing workshop, but it was cancelled at the last minute and I decided to take advantage of it. We went to Wonderland, where Greg (a coaster-phobe) was a good sport and let me drag him on a bunch of rides. I wrote 8,000 words of my novel and hammered out a few major plot issues, got a few other things ready to submit and followed up on a couple of others. We watched movies and went to see one of his friends play in an acoustic 80s cover band, and I spent an evening dancing for the first time in ... umm ... ten years? I used to love dancing in my early twenties. Then I married someone who categorically refused to do anything that even approached dancing. I ran, a lot. I spent some time down at the Don communing with nature. I also got air conditioning.

The air conditioning is a thirty-year-old window unit that my parents used in their first house when I was a baby. It has an "energy saver" switch. What do you suppose that meant in the 1970s? Am I going to crash the grid? Can I salve my conscience even slightly by telling myself that I am reusing? Probably not? At least I can sleep.

Now here I am, back at work, with probably seven weeks to go before school starts. Ack.

My life is great when I'm not at work.

Anyway. One of my Happiness Expert books said that the benefits of vacation generally disappear about a week after a return to work (and at least the level of restfulness completely vanishes for me by the morning after, since I can't get to sleep on time and then have to wake up early--I'm beat), but the psychology of savouring can help you get the most from good experiences.

The psychology of savouring! What next.

The Happiness Experts have even come up with some practices that increase savouring so you can hold on to the good stuff, including vacation, for as long as humanly possible. Which sounds good to me, especially the morning after the end of a really great vacation.

1. Share the good stuff with others. Talk about what you love and why.
2. Strengthen the memories. Take pictures, get souveniers, write it down.
3. Be proud and congratulate yourself/brag. My guess is this applies more to "I just won the Nobel prize!" than "I love the Behemoth!"
4. Focus your attention on the parts of the experience you want to remember and block out the rest of it.
5. Absorption: immerse yourself completely in the moment, don't think about what's coming next.

You'll have to take my word that I was repeating four and five to myself like a mantra, especially for the last few days. "Stay in the moment! Don't think about Monday! Pay attention!" And the photos I took will soon be printed and festooned liberally around the apartment and the cubicle (for the few remaining weeks I will have the cubicle), not to mention having already been plastered all over facebook. As for numbers one and two ... guess.

Posted by Andrea at July 14, 2008 9:41 AM under Friends and Others , Me

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