spring...break!

Just when you think you can't do it anymore, can't hack the (seriously) early mornings, the impossible, sometimes whiny, sometimes ludicrous demands, the line at the copier in the mornings, where you--still being fairly junior--carefully defend your turf-- there is a break. A week, nine days including weekends, and a stillness that's so unusual it feels odd. Your ears adjust to the quiet, embrace it; you hear the sound of falling rain, notice that somehow, while you've been working away, the seasons have changed. That's just how out of touch you are, with the world around you.

My dad used to struggle with 'transitions'; vacations were always hard for him, I think, because they were long (he's a college professor), and that meant spending more time than he would have liked without 'work' to do, without touching, somehow, that part of his identity. I've wondered sometimes if in this I'm my father's daughter, a workaholic, addicted to the predictability, the stability, the status, the self-righteousness, that having good work to do brings.

But, after a few vacations days, a few here, and a couple in a new city, I'm pretty sure I'm only a *sometimes* workaholic. I love when time slows to a crawl, when I can build whole days around a single meal, or activity, or call friends without having to make plans six weeks in advance. My rhythm changes when I'm on vacation, not in huge ways (I still go to bed around the same time, and wake up early, though not *so* early), but in the way I move from task to task, which becomes more organic, less tethered. My body even feels different...sort of...even, and steady. I always wonder how to take that feeling with me, back into the work week, but it doesn't travel well, it resists capture, it's beautiful, but fleeting.