This last New Year’s weekend and Christmas weekend are the longest time off I have had in a couple years. While Christmas was very busy with family, New Years was a 3 ½ day opportunity to get caught up on all kinds of chores and projects. Instead, something else very different happened.
About a month ago as I was cruising through Costco and my eyes fell upon a couple of puzzles. I am talking about that old family favorite – the flat picture puzzle. The pictures were very colorful and detailed and the level of complexity looked pretty good, with each puzzle having 1000 pieces. I haven’t worked on a puzzle in at least 25 years. I thought I would pick them up and have them out for family to work on during free periods during the holidays.
Well that did not happen. Between cooking and having both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day being a major meal production, there was no free time. But Friday morning New Year’s day was another story. I decided, what the heck, let’s give this puzzle a try. Well here we are Monday morning and the puzzle is about two thirds done. I did nothing but work on the puzzle for three days straight, 12+ hours a day. I had about six dozen other projects demanding my attention, and I ignored them all to work on a puzzle.
The experience was very interesting. I became nothing but a pair of eyes and the occasional hand movement. My world reduced down to colors and shapes. Generally my mind is pretty quiet as I have trained it to be able to focus on subtle kinesthetic and energetic changes in patient’s bodies so I can do my work. But doing this puzzle my mind was really super quiet. Typically during my workday I pull out of my focus every 15 minutes to take the next patient into my treatment area, but with the puzzle I would focus for a couple hours at a time without any interruptions.
I had to take the occasional bathroom break and also feed Ellen and myself. But beyond that I was just a scanning machine looking for matching colors and shapes. Even more interesting was how easily I would simply ignore all the other work calling to me. My brain went on vacation and just refused to do anything other than work on the puzzle. I was on a staycation. I hadn’t planned to be on a staycation, but some part of me decided I was on one anyway.
The thing is that after 3 days of intense focus I should have been exhausted, but the exact opposite happened. I have been on many one week vacations where everyday was a busy series of outings and things to do. At the end I find I am no more rested than when I work. I often feel I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. But after spending time on this puzzle, I felt as refreshed and energized as though I had had a really good relaxing vacation.
What is this all saying? With this experience I would have to reassess what it means to take a vacation. I used to think that vacation meant doing something different for a time. I see a deeper aspect now. Vacation carries a deep release of all the things we believe we “need” to do. It is about abandoning yourself in a pleasurable activity or feeling and saying, “The heck with everything I normally give my life energies to. I am doing what I want to do right now.” Vacation for me seems to be a vacation from my accepted responsibilities.
It is good to get away now and then.