Vacation

In summer I have taken to eating as many meals as I can out on the porch. I started this out last summer as a way of extending the house, and the practice has continued on this year. This morning it was cool and breezy -- I actually had to go into the mud room to grab an old shirt to stay warm enough. It's lovely, each meal at home contains a whisper of vacation.

What I need is an actual, honest to goodness vacation, though I really can't say where I'm going to get one. We will go to the Northeast and see Mary's family and we will visit some more colleges and help Graham wrap his mind around that problem, and I'll have some road trips with Natalie if she lets me and we'll have some weekends in the mountains with friends for weekends and concerts -- but actual vacations? Multiple work days where I'm not working and am actively putting the cares of the world aside? I don't know where those come from.

So I guess I need to have the discipline to find vacations within myself at the ends of days and weeks. To turn it off and just chill. Which is pretty hard for me.