Portland

We’ve just left a farm in the mountains outside of Portland Oregon, where two of our friends were married yesterday. And apart from the standard feelings of some longing, genuine fulfillment, and joy that weddings tend to evoke, I came away from this weekend with something different too. For the first time in a surprisingly long time, I was alone with myself unrestricted by the patterns of my daily life. It’s been a LONG TIME since I had any real time to myself. And it struck me as being alarmingly foreign.

Each time I go somewhere, I am either furiously trying to live up to my own agenda, or the agenda of my friends or family. There is always much to do, many people to see. There is always a sense of urgency with each day off, which results in having quite the opposite of a day off at all. Vacations have not been vacations. Vacations have been to do lists away from the office. Regimented visits to towns where I used to live. A round of visits to my family or friends. Driving, walking or riding the subway through streets I already know, on my way to accomplish a string of errands that will fly by and leave me longing for any real time with the people that I love. Will I have even seen their faces before I find it time to leave again? I can never remember. All of my time, ALL of my money, all of my precious few resources are and have been for the past eight years, entirely devoted to leaving the past, followed by seemingly endless trips to revisit it.

The pattern consists essentially of my growing restless somewhere, moving away, longing for that which I have only just left, visiting, and then gaining some perspective and feeling more content in my new space, until once again I grow restless, and the saga continues. Each time I’ve tacked on a new place to the list of obligatory visits, and a person only has ten vacation days a year. For me, they are spent each year without my even having the ability to see all of the people I’d love to see. Not to mention allowing for any time to myself. Or to ourselves, in the case that Bryan and I could ever even theoretically agree on a vacation destination.

I found myself this weekend, however, on this farm in the mountains of Oregon, as I’ve just mentioned, and with no one contained by the surrounding few thousand miles to visit. Bryan being reunited with all of his college friends for a long holiday weekend, and gleeful at the prospect of drinking beer and playing golf at 10am every day, I found myself alone with time to kill, and no internet connection to keep me busy. So at 8am on a weekend, sweatpants clad, un-showered and ready for the lack of action that certainly awaited me, I grabbed my camera and headed out to explore the grounds. Initially I was struck by just how long its been since I’ve walked slowly, headed nowhere, purposeless and without direction. At the very thought of it, my entire body lifted and relaxed, and I said a silent apology to myself for being so damned purposeful all the time. New York has done that to me, I see now.

Apart from being the quietest place on earth, (how long has it been since I’ve been in absolute silence? I just can’t recall that either…) I found the farm to be replete with all of the usual treasures of the outdoors with each new step I took. All that I seem to have forgotten. There were beautiful flowers, herb gardens, rocks, grass, squirrels, trees, bugs and dew. The mornings in those mountains lasts nearly all day, and a chilly, gray mist hung over the grounds until it burned off eventually, revealing a spill of sunshine at nearly 3pm, graciously allowing me time for many, many cups of coffee and the absence of guilt for having not showered by lunch time. I walked by the green house and heard gravel crunching under my feet. Gravel, despite being a member of the concrete family, for some reason sounds like home when I crunch through it. It tells you you’re outside, and almost always somewhere fun. On a path that others have traveled, but not enough to pave.

As remote as it felt, we also weren’t in the middle of nowhere, I reminded myself. The farm had its bars and restaurants, a spa complete with soaking pool and your standard fare tacky gift shop. I browsed around, got a massage, manicure and pedicure, after which I met the guys for tater-tots and burgers, while the wedding’s officiator, first and foremost just one of the guys, worked on his speech. Then we napped. I read a book on the porch. I heard my own voice inside of my head, but not aloud for entire hours. Nothing had to be done.

It was a beautiful weekend, and the wedding itself was lovely. It’s hard to go wrong when a big group of friends gets together for four days with nothing on the agenda apart from celebration. And for me, it renewed a very real need that probably exists in all of us to have time with our own hearts and minds. Time unencumbered by the tedium of the day to day. I am SO GRATEFUL to have had this weekend, and my renewed promise to myself is that at the cost of a really full inbox upon my return, or hiring a cat-sitter to feed the small, furry man, a vacation is worth EVERY effort to make it happen. I’ve waited far too long, and intend not to make that same mistake in the future. My mind and heart deserve some time to themselves, and so do I.