Instead of a ‘real vacation’, I have been spending some time with family in the village of my childhood. There is a lot to be said for a simple life, retro-style.
While social media wellbeing accounts propagate simple habits as a kind of ‘to do list’, living simply is the purest form of relaxation there is. Picking your fruit directly from the tree is arguably the most wholesome luxury there is. Enjoying your morning coffee in the garden without being confined by a schedule; not checking your phone for hours because you forgot where you put it and buying cherries at the farmer’s next door can hardly be topped in terms of well-being hacks.
Maybe it’s midlife, maybe it is just the desire to escape the constant emails, notifications, work whatsapps after hours and deadlines. I don’t know, but for someone like me, who mostly travels to city destinations, the dolce far niente vacation is a necessary fixture in the year. And who’s around in August anyway?
It’s not like anything is really happening at work or elsewhere. Everybody is waiting for September to have the world reset. And to be ready for September, you really got to chill a bit.
Every summer, I have the desire to disconnect from the modern world as much as I can. Last year, I was lucky enough to go to Croatia and spend my day swimming and sunbathing all day. This year, I have found a different way to disconnect. I have been focusing on the things I remembered from my childhood that I have missed in my day to day: baking a cake with the plum’s picked at the farmer’s next door or listening to old vinyl records and spending time in the garden. The goal was to be offline as much as possible; slow living at its finest.
I can truly feel how it benefited my soul. In the mornings, I sat with no purpose on the terrace with a coffee in hand. I enjoyed plugging wilted flowers in the garden and watch the figs grow ripe. I had no desire to go to town and no desire to shop. Disconnecting like that for over a week can be so soothing and relaxing, almost zen.
Like top athletes have off-seasons, so should those of us who are always in motion. If you are honest with yourself, wandering through a hot and stuffy metropolis in summer is not going to address the feeling of being a hamster in a cage. Only doing nothing can really do that.
The comfy traveller's diaries 