We’ll See Tomorrow
This spring I am on vacation in a city I have never visited before. A chance to immerse myself in a different culture, a different pace, during a few days in which nothing is required.
And that last part is quite important to me. No alarm clock, no getting up early, no obligations, no chattering colleagues at the coffee machine. Yet we humans are very good, even in a vacation setting like this, at filling the day completely with all sorts of things. On paper or digitally, we bring along the guide “twenty places you must see,” map out the route in Maps, and run from one place to another. Right after opening we step into the first museum, and just before that nice little café closes at the end of the day, we quickly gulp down a cappuccino.
Two or three days of enjoying at full speed without having missed a thing. No sights, at least. But the chance to slow down is gone.
There have been vacations when I behaved exactly like that, but in hindsight those are the vacations I remember very little about. Because if you are only half present in everything you do, your mind already ahead, then you see nothing at all. Not really.
Tomorrow morning, I know what I will do. The only thing to do is to wake up with the light of the sun, turn on the coffee machine, put on my shoes, and take the first step outside. Wander through the city and see what I come across. A small bookstore here, a record shop there, and a lovely lunch at a place I definitely did not look up in advance on Maps.
Or not. We’ll see tomorrow.