Get away

The suitcases have been put away.  The postcards we bought for ourselves adorn the fridge.  Our walking sticks, picked up in the forests, are still waiting in a corner of our foyer, a little reminder of where we were. 

Last month we were lucky enough to get away for two weeks to the mountains, in Savoie in the Alps.  I say lucky because in a year when covid has smashed everyone's travel plans or made some reluctant to travel at all, we do feel fortunate to have had a real vacation. It wasn't the one we planned last spring when we had hoped to go to the US. But there was that pesky virus...

So we set out by car to the mountains.  The road trip sensation crept in quickly as we picnicked on our fleece blanket at a rest area. The kids watched a dvd in the backseat.  Alex kept taking off his arm straps on his car seat forcing us to stop the car and speak sternly to him. And then the kids squabbled, or rather my tween got annoyed with her toddler bro. And that too is part of road trips.

I found it hard the first few days  to cut myself off from work and I'm not sure I ever truly did. But I made an effort not to check the emails I was on copy on immediately or not at all if they didn't seem urgent. I realized once again that I have a hard time focusing on the moment and not letting worries about the next thing bother me.  I feel anxious about bus schedules, meeting times with the airbnb owner and finding our way and those are things it's hard to shed even on holiday. 

Despite that, just the fact of being elsewhere is important to me. Every since I was a young teen, I have appreciated the feeling of changing place, seeing the world from a different perspective.  When we would hit the road to go to Texas to visit my grandma and aunt, sometimes I would keep a travel journal. I would look at the wooden-paneled houses we drove past on a sunny day and imagine what the inhabitants were doing.  Their lives seemed happier, sunnier, just because I was on vacation. 

Even visiting a gas station in a new city and checking out the different sodas and candy bars can be fun.  In French they have a good word for it: dépaysant.  But it is hard to translate accurately: exotic, disorienting, don't seem right. The best translation I have seen is the idea of a change of scenery. It's amazing to me to see how, each time, a change of place can generate a change in your mind.

So in this year of limited travel, a change of scene was sorely needed. When I wasn't worrying about this that or the other, I truly enjoyed the landscapes and prairies of wildflowers.  We walked more than we usually do so and doing that with a toddler in a backpack carrier or pushing him uphill or down steep paths in a stroller was rather physical (the husband helped on this, too, of course).  So I may have had a nice mental break but physically I felt tired after this trip and am still catching up on sleep!

And as the wanderlust never truly leaves me, I am already thinking of daytrips and bigger trips in our future!  If 2020 has taught us one thing it's that our health is so valuable and we never know what life has in store for us.  So travel when and if you can and no matter what try and enjoy each day!