Off Season & After Hours
Episode 08:14:2023 - Prompt: Holiday
Where Holiday took me…
I’ve picked up a few Britishisms after living in Europe for 15 years.
Such as:
“Why don’t you come to ours?” Rather than “…to our house.”
Or:
“She was in hospital for 6 days.” Rather than “…in the hospital…”
And:
“Where are you going on holiday?” Rather than “…on vacation?”
I only notice it when talking to other North American English speakers.
And I blush internally when I hear myself.
I like the sound of taking a holiday more than going on vacation.
A vacation sounds planned, packaged, determined.
A holiday sounds leisurely, mindful, expansive.
As a kid, I knew holidays were days when we didn’t have to go to school.
I loved them!
Vacation, on the other hand, had pressure attached. I can’t think of a time when I’ve taken a proper vacation. Even when we traveled through Australia for two months, it felt more like a holiday.
My partner & I used to call our way of traveling: Off Season & After Hours.
As unexpected off-season visitors, we were welcomed into local people’s homes, bars, clubs, gardens, markets, cinemas, parties, and dinners for spontaneous after-hour adventures.
I haven’t left our town in over three years.
I am the local welcoming the unexpected (or expected) visitors into my home, bar, club, garden, market, cinema, party, and dinners.
I rarely take a summer holiday.
I associate it with standing on line to overpay for a marketed experience.
I’ve also worked as a freelancer for a long time. One of the secrets to becoming a successful freelancer is to be available when everyone else is on holiday.
Availability is currency.
This was true in the restaurant / bar game, as well. Those of us with distant families tended the hearth while others broke bread.
Pay could be time-and-a-half or double depending on which holiday I worked.
This scheme became tiring, however. It’s not that I wanted to celebrate Christmas; it was that I wanted the day to myself.
The transition from seasonal or holiday worker to a person who was on holiday felt like freedom. Maybe I didn’t make overtime pay, but when I looked at it, I usually spent that money on a massage to detangle my stressed body from working too much.
It was a financial wash.
My industry has taken a huge hit in the past three years. My income is reduced by nearly two-thirds. Part of me wants to enjoy the lack of employment as if I were on holiday.
But it’s impossible to ignore my diminished savings.
Can it be a holiday if I can’t enjoy it?
YOUR TURN: I chose this theme because I know many Contributors are on holiday. I’d like to keep the association wide open. If you get Madonna’s song stuck in your head, like I do, perhaps start with earworms!
Where does HOLIDAY take you?
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December was going along fine. The old Subaru passed inspection so we could give the car to our son Alex, a friend launched her first book, I received not one but two book offers, and we bought a new Subaru. Santa Claus was coming to town! But as the Christmas holiday approached, Merle Haggard’s “If we make it through December” seemed a more appropriate theme song. Cold rain began to fall on Wednesday afternoon the 21st, while my daughter was driving with our granddaughter to spend the holidays with us. A six-hour drive took eight. Thursday morning brought freezing rain and ice then more cold rain and wind. That afternoon, my son and his partner experienced delays when they flew from LaGuardia to Charlottesville. Then on Friday evening the 23rd, a deer ran into our brand-new Subaru while I was driving along a dark stretch of road no more than three minutes from our house. No one was hurt—though I’m sure the collision didn’t do the deer any good—and I was able to drive home. At midnight, Keith and I picked up Alex at the train station in HIS old Subaru; the train had been delayed four hours. Many people never made it to their Christmas destinations. Thankfully we seven were safely together. But then on Christmas Eve day, we lost power. Thank goodness for the whole house backup generator and the electric company arriving in the wee hours of Christmas Day. Santa Claus came despite the bitter cold. With the Big Green Egg iced shut, we cooked the turkey in the oven. On Monday—still a holiday—the temperature rose, and everyone travelled home. I filed a claim with our car insurance company, washed bedsheets and towels, and made turkey soup. The next day, I contacted the body shop to get the new Subaru towed. Yes, we made it through December okay, but gratitude made our Christmas a holiday.
I’m on summer vacation now. It is really a staycation, a playcation. We’re staying home because our dog is too old for us to board him or take him with us, and also because we are lucky enough to live in ‘vacationland’, here in Maine, and that may be why neither of us has an urge to go anywhere else. A few weeks with enough time every day to do the wonderful outdoor summer Maine things we love to do. So we sail in our little daysailer when the wind is right, play pickleball with friends most days, ride our bikes, swim at a nearby pond when its warm enough, take our time grilling and otherwise preparing the tasty zuchinni, lettuce and tomatoes from David’s garden. I feel ridiculously privileged. And guilty. We see the photos of the people in Maui who lost everthing. We see people in boats bringing food to the residents while we in our sailboat are learning to work with the wind, to not get too scared when we heel, to let out the sail, reef the jib and just glide through the bay. We do it just for the fun of it. Making time for playtime in life, maybe that’s OK too. We are lucky to have the time, the health, the places, the friends, the common interests. It is what I wish for my patients, neurodivergent kids and their families. To have time to enjoy, to enjoy doing something together, to enjoy your people. And then also do things to help others. One doesn’t preclude the other.