The week before any vacation is hell.
Even when I am really excited about what we have planned, which I normally am, the week before we leave is chaos. This year we were returning to the farmhouse on the lake that we rent every year, only this year our entire extended family was joining us. We had planned a celebration of my father’s life at the lake this year, a place my father adored. It would be the first time that we had been there that he would not. All sons and families came in. My sister and her family have two places on a nearby lake so they all traveled as well as my mother, who stays at one of my sister’s camps. En masse, one might say.
We had arranged a farm sitter for the flock of sheep and seventeen chickens and, separately, a house/dog sitter for Sam, Bronte and Muir. This meant that besides arranging and packing ourselves, we had to also stock and stack up for the sitters.
As people arrived before we left for camp I lost count of sheet changes. A camp is not like an Air B&B, there really isn’t a prerequisite for having all household essentials at the camp, so this means you must pack them in. Matches? Check. Paper towels and toilet paper? Check. Reading books mean reading glasses. Must have a puzzle. Pen and paper are not a given and how else can you keep track of Yahtzee tournaments? The grill is a charcoal grill – Oregon trail style, and charcoal is not guaranteed. Dish washing pods – we don’t have a dishwasher at home (well…Paul) so what are those squishy things? I throw them into the cart, at this point what is one more thing? And, of course, these are already plentiful at the camp.
Five cars, one truck meander up the dirt road to the camp. In the back of the truck sits our Chiminea (think upright cast-iron fire pit with stack), a tent, and a plastic pool for the little people who can’t be in the lake. We look like a modern-day version of the Beverly Hillbillies.
The house was bursting at the seams with love, laughter and laundry. In what was originally perceived as a kind gesture toward his brothers, Josh decided to sleep in his tent. He pitched it dead center of the cellar hole of the huge, long-since-dismantled barn that was across the road from the camp. He popped it up, threw a sleeping bag on top of his blow up queen size mattress and had the best undisturbed sleep of us all under the milky way. Kindness or brilliance?
You might note that amidst the Perley pile, I did not mention an instrument. We didn’t have a lot of room but that hadn’t stopped me before. My cello has ridden upside down behind the front seat for many a trip. What stopped me was my grand need for rest.
Americans especially underestimate the need for rest. We tend to underplay the need for sleep, the time during which the brain replenishes itself. Our motto is always do more.
I have practiced six days a week almost without fail for years. Do I come to it every day wearing a big grin? – no, but the point is, I come to it each and every day. I look at my cello as a life partner; I know it and it knows me. I get aggravated when its sound post has had an adjustment the night before and it has acquired a new load of humidity during the night, and is out of whack once again. And it gets aggravated when it is telling me, by the ring, where the intonation of a note lies and I just seem to ignore it. Repeatedly. Life partner. And, like in all wonderful and loving relationships, we need a break from each other.
Both myself and my colleagues have discovered that, during a multi-day break from the cello, the brain often solves knotty technical problems which were present before the break.
Early in the vacation when I walked into a store now without a mask, I felt odd…. Like something was missing, because it was. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself during my normal practice times. But have no fear, I figured it out! Reading works, taking a walk works, paddling in the canoe with Paul works, and I found having a glass of wine and looking out at the water works quite well in fact.
As the week wore on I found myself “reading” on the lounge chair, eyes closed, mouth agape. Doing nothing suited me. The more I rested, the funnier I got, the easier and nicer I became. Little things didn’t bother me as much because of the luxury of down-time.
As we repacked everything up to go home a mere seven days later, I took a moment to sit down on the little island we have in front of the camp and reflect on the week. I felt sadness at having to leave because don’t we all want to be on vacation all of the time? But I realized that it is always better to leave wanting more. At this point I did miss the purposefulness of practice and adding manure to Mount Poosuvius. I realized that it took the rest to bring me to that realization.
Paul and I talked on the ride home, like we do each year, about how we should really take more time to watch the sun set, and get to bed earlier and eat more ice cream- in effect, rest more. Will we? Well, maybe the more ice cream part.
But we recognize the value of stopping, of changing paths, even for just a week.
With an important performance coming, I sat down with my cello the first night of our return. I knew it would be slightly painful and contemplated the orange ear plugs. It wasn’t as bad as I thought but,…. was that a bit of disdain I heard from the cello?
Melissa Perley