This is how my family did vacations after we were all adults. I recall one afternoon six of us were gathered in a big living room with a fireplace and a view of the ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island, and each of us with a pile of books by our chair, and basically no conversation until it was time for a meal and that day's cook got up and walked away and then 30 minutes later called us to the table to eat. Which we did, then we all helped clean up, then we went back to our silence and our books while the bald eagles flew by the window and the waves washed up and down the beach. I am the only one of those six people still alive, and I'd give anything to be back in that room, with those people and the silence and the books.
I took my first absorption vacation this summer. A friend loaned me their home for two weeks, on an island off the west coast, while they were not there. I read constantly. I knitted a whole lot. I dabbled with watercolors. I sat in the garden and just looked at the ocean. I spent a lot of time watching birds. It was such a gift - not only to spend time doing these things but to know I could. I have been places alone before, but my PTSD has gotten in the way of feeling the freedom to rest in those places. (My hyper-vigilance was stoked to get a new place to scope out constantly, and so I felt restless and ill at ease.) But these two weeks? Bliss. Quiet. Absolutely nowhere I had to be or anything I *had* to do. A friend joined me for the last few days at the house and we carried on as I had - reading, painting, knitting, embroidering. And we went a few places, and ate great mussels, but mostly we were resting. I carry that sense of quiet and peace inside me now, an accessible memory of what rest *is*.
Oooh, thank you for framing (re-framing) this for me. I'm an active vacationer. But my mom, well, I often joke I'm going to start an Instagram account called "Leesa reading in beautiful places." She bribes us to vacation with her by paying for lux accommodations in amazing places that we otherwise couldn't afford. My husband and I will be out riding camels and jamming with Bedouins in the Moroccan desert, and she'll be back at camp reading. We'll be out doing a Safari walk looking at elephants, and she'll be in the lodge cafe with a book, with a view of the watering hole. It used to flummox me. But then I realized that everyone wins. She just wants a new place, other than her living room, to read a book! If that's how she wants to spend her money, and she's taking us along for the ride, awesome. Next vacation is at a mountain retreat in Costa Rica. She'll probably stay on the balcony reading and looking for sloths (her spirit animal, according to her bff) while we head out to go on hikes and visit local markets. Everyone has their own heaven.
This Christmas is my first without my parents who died earlier this year. Christmas was always full of beautiful traditions with my family. My husband and I decided that the least worst thing we could do this year would be a complete departure from holiday traditions. We are going to the Outer Banks. I have never been to the beach in the winter and I look forward to the harsh desolate beauty that I imagine. Thank you for reminding me to order a stack of books to bring along. I hope to spend a lot of time reading quietly. Wishing everyone a peaceful holiday season.
This is one of the reasons I do my very best reading on a plane. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no role to play - I can't exactly fly the thing. I never quite thought of it is an absorptive experience, but for me it definitely is!
We do this annually, at home, after Christmas and before New Year. It has its own name (Days Between) and traditions (only pajamas or robes, 24/7! no visitors! simplest possible meals, like tinned fish on crackers!)
I think some of its power comes from being the exact intentional opposite immediately after all the bustle of holiday prep and parties. There is nothing to set the alarm for. Family is lovely, but this is my true break. I have a brand-new book and a relaxing documentary saved up for this year’s and I’m so excited!
So excited to read about this! For two years now, a group of us have done what we call "Reading Retreats"! We rent a place (so far in the woods but we're open to new places) with ample seating options, pack easy dinners/take-out options, and bring copious amounts of books. The only rule is you can't interrupt someone else who is reading. It's been so fun and I get so many people who want to join!
Wende Whitus has just published her book on how to take a Personal Retreat Day (PRD). I have been following her workshops for years and I take one PRD per quarter. You dedicate (ideally) one full day, though of course a half-day may work better for many people, to reflect on how different aspects of your life are going (relationships, health, growth, career, etc.) She gives lots of recommendations for how to prepare for that day, similar to an absorption vacation (like making sure you don't have to cook or clean, especially if you are staying at home), and what elements you should try to include, such as reading, gentle movement/exercise, time in nature, and nourishment that meets your needs. I think this is a big overlap with the idea of an absorption vacation - and both also fight back against the idea that you have to "earn" that time off.
I don’t know why but I’m seeing absorption as Victorian consumption, but in reverse! Whatever the opposite of wasting away is...taking up space with pleasure?
I described this to my husband and he was like "so, a vacation" .... the not dealing with logistics and travel mechanics is a huge part of a vacation. It also validates my "recharge time" which is precisely what you've mentioned but on a smaller scale. (Side note: my professors look at me like I'm wasting time by saying I'm going to knit tomorrow to recharge, I find it amusing in a sad "too-many-dues-were-paid" way)
I love "absorption vacations," just never recognized them as such. In 2024, I'll have this kind of getaway—a retreat—with a weeklong writer's workshop and also a weeklong ultramarathon that combines off-the-grid running with camping.
I'm wondering about your first paragraph, however. Why not put your work on hiatus; why do twice as much ahead of time to keep the work flow going in your absence? You could take a week off from your newsletter, and readers like me would understand.
A little over a decade ago, my husband and I pulled the plug on our normal lives for an academic year and traveled nomadically and cheaply around the world with our two kids, then 8 and 11, teaching them the equivalent of 3rd and 6th grades on the road. It was kind of radical marriage/family therapy to reassess and change our direction in life. We did it because for several years prior to that, we dreamed about a whole summer off, but then we realized it felt stressful because three months' worth of work would face us upon return, and the prospect of catch-up felt too daunting. Our answer was to stop work, live off savings and live cheaply, and do nothing except get from Point A to Point B and teach our kids (and ourselves) along the way, and then start over and start fresh when we returned. It was a year-long absorption getaway, a DIY sabbatical. Best year ever, no regrets.
When my husband and I were first dating we would go out to eat and see couples sitting at a table and reading books individually (it was before smart phones) and we always thought this was so sad...that they didn't have anything to talk about. But the longer we were together, we realized it can actually be a lovely indication of intimacy. The desire to be together even when we are absorbed in our own interests, and without the constant need for talking and filling silence. He loved video games and they are of absolutely no interest to me, but I would sit with him and read for hours while he played. After he died, I've had the hardest time getting absorbed in a book because he isn't there and the silence isn't the same. I am slowly working my way back to this and I know when I do it will be a comforting memory of those times we had together.
I've been thinking about this so much since having a child. This post gave me the idea to ask my friend who travels a lot if we can use her house for this type vacation when she's out of town. Less guilt because it's free and nearby, but far enough away from the laundry to immerse ourselves in something restorative.
This is so important and I find so hard (still) to explain to people. They'll ask, "What did you do on your vacation?" And I say, "Nothing." By which I mean, I laid on the beach and read. Sometimes I interrupted my reading with a walk along the beach, not for exercise, but to look at things and maybe put my body in a slightly different position for a while. But everything else I did was a short interruption in what is otherwise, just reading. And it's glorious. And necessary. And it is not at all 'traveling.'
I do love to read and can get absorbed pretty easily in regular life, so when I go on an absorption vacation I actually prefer not to read because I want to give my brain a break from processing incoming information. We use beach vacations and camping for this purpose. The ocean and a fire are the only things I've ever found that truly turn my brain to neutral. I can watch them for hours without many thoughts or any worries entering my brain. My husband and I sit, stare, crack an occasional beer and just let the world flow by. It's truly glorious.
One of the best absorption vacations I’ve ever taken was an Alaskan cruise. I knew I’d love the landscape, but what I didn’t anticipate was how much idle time I’d have to *read.* I’ll tell you what: having someone else worry about prepping meals and snacks while I sat in a lounger with a book and a blanket draped on my lap, coffee by my side, and watching the occasional whale surface? That was pretty nice.
Whenever I think of that trip, that’s what I remember: the peace of diving into page after page, and having long dinners with my people every night after *they* experienced their own absorption activities during the day. Bliss!
This is how my family did vacations after we were all adults. I recall one afternoon six of us were gathered in a big living room with a fireplace and a view of the ocean off the west coast of Vancouver Island, and each of us with a pile of books by our chair, and basically no conversation until it was time for a meal and that day's cook got up and walked away and then 30 minutes later called us to the table to eat. Which we did, then we all helped clean up, then we went back to our silence and our books while the bald eagles flew by the window and the waves washed up and down the beach. I am the only one of those six people still alive, and I'd give anything to be back in that room, with those people and the silence and the books.
I took my first absorption vacation this summer. A friend loaned me their home for two weeks, on an island off the west coast, while they were not there. I read constantly. I knitted a whole lot. I dabbled with watercolors. I sat in the garden and just looked at the ocean. I spent a lot of time watching birds. It was such a gift - not only to spend time doing these things but to know I could. I have been places alone before, but my PTSD has gotten in the way of feeling the freedom to rest in those places. (My hyper-vigilance was stoked to get a new place to scope out constantly, and so I felt restless and ill at ease.) But these two weeks? Bliss. Quiet. Absolutely nowhere I had to be or anything I *had* to do. A friend joined me for the last few days at the house and we carried on as I had - reading, painting, knitting, embroidering. And we went a few places, and ate great mussels, but mostly we were resting. I carry that sense of quiet and peace inside me now, an accessible memory of what rest *is*.
Oooh, thank you for framing (re-framing) this for me. I'm an active vacationer. But my mom, well, I often joke I'm going to start an Instagram account called "Leesa reading in beautiful places." She bribes us to vacation with her by paying for lux accommodations in amazing places that we otherwise couldn't afford. My husband and I will be out riding camels and jamming with Bedouins in the Moroccan desert, and she'll be back at camp reading. We'll be out doing a Safari walk looking at elephants, and she'll be in the lodge cafe with a book, with a view of the watering hole. It used to flummox me. But then I realized that everyone wins. She just wants a new place, other than her living room, to read a book! If that's how she wants to spend her money, and she's taking us along for the ride, awesome. Next vacation is at a mountain retreat in Costa Rica. She'll probably stay on the balcony reading and looking for sloths (her spirit animal, according to her bff) while we head out to go on hikes and visit local markets. Everyone has their own heaven.
This Christmas is my first without my parents who died earlier this year. Christmas was always full of beautiful traditions with my family. My husband and I decided that the least worst thing we could do this year would be a complete departure from holiday traditions. We are going to the Outer Banks. I have never been to the beach in the winter and I look forward to the harsh desolate beauty that I imagine. Thank you for reminding me to order a stack of books to bring along. I hope to spend a lot of time reading quietly. Wishing everyone a peaceful holiday season.
This is one of the reasons I do my very best reading on a plane. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no role to play - I can't exactly fly the thing. I never quite thought of it is an absorptive experience, but for me it definitely is!
We do this annually, at home, after Christmas and before New Year. It has its own name (Days Between) and traditions (only pajamas or robes, 24/7! no visitors! simplest possible meals, like tinned fish on crackers!)
I think some of its power comes from being the exact intentional opposite immediately after all the bustle of holiday prep and parties. There is nothing to set the alarm for. Family is lovely, but this is my true break. I have a brand-new book and a relaxing documentary saved up for this year’s and I’m so excited!
So excited to read about this! For two years now, a group of us have done what we call "Reading Retreats"! We rent a place (so far in the woods but we're open to new places) with ample seating options, pack easy dinners/take-out options, and bring copious amounts of books. The only rule is you can't interrupt someone else who is reading. It's been so fun and I get so many people who want to join!
Wende Whitus has just published her book on how to take a Personal Retreat Day (PRD). I have been following her workshops for years and I take one PRD per quarter. You dedicate (ideally) one full day, though of course a half-day may work better for many people, to reflect on how different aspects of your life are going (relationships, health, growth, career, etc.) She gives lots of recommendations for how to prepare for that day, similar to an absorption vacation (like making sure you don't have to cook or clean, especially if you are staying at home), and what elements you should try to include, such as reading, gentle movement/exercise, time in nature, and nourishment that meets your needs. I think this is a big overlap with the idea of an absorption vacation - and both also fight back against the idea that you have to "earn" that time off.
I don’t know why but I’m seeing absorption as Victorian consumption, but in reverse! Whatever the opposite of wasting away is...taking up space with pleasure?
I described this to my husband and he was like "so, a vacation" .... the not dealing with logistics and travel mechanics is a huge part of a vacation. It also validates my "recharge time" which is precisely what you've mentioned but on a smaller scale. (Side note: my professors look at me like I'm wasting time by saying I'm going to knit tomorrow to recharge, I find it amusing in a sad "too-many-dues-were-paid" way)
I love "absorption vacations," just never recognized them as such. In 2024, I'll have this kind of getaway—a retreat—with a weeklong writer's workshop and also a weeklong ultramarathon that combines off-the-grid running with camping.
I'm wondering about your first paragraph, however. Why not put your work on hiatus; why do twice as much ahead of time to keep the work flow going in your absence? You could take a week off from your newsletter, and readers like me would understand.
A little over a decade ago, my husband and I pulled the plug on our normal lives for an academic year and traveled nomadically and cheaply around the world with our two kids, then 8 and 11, teaching them the equivalent of 3rd and 6th grades on the road. It was kind of radical marriage/family therapy to reassess and change our direction in life. We did it because for several years prior to that, we dreamed about a whole summer off, but then we realized it felt stressful because three months' worth of work would face us upon return, and the prospect of catch-up felt too daunting. Our answer was to stop work, live off savings and live cheaply, and do nothing except get from Point A to Point B and teach our kids (and ourselves) along the way, and then start over and start fresh when we returned. It was a year-long absorption getaway, a DIY sabbatical. Best year ever, no regrets.
When my husband and I were first dating we would go out to eat and see couples sitting at a table and reading books individually (it was before smart phones) and we always thought this was so sad...that they didn't have anything to talk about. But the longer we were together, we realized it can actually be a lovely indication of intimacy. The desire to be together even when we are absorbed in our own interests, and without the constant need for talking and filling silence. He loved video games and they are of absolutely no interest to me, but I would sit with him and read for hours while he played. After he died, I've had the hardest time getting absorbed in a book because he isn't there and the silence isn't the same. I am slowly working my way back to this and I know when I do it will be a comforting memory of those times we had together.
I've been thinking about this so much since having a child. This post gave me the idea to ask my friend who travels a lot if we can use her house for this type vacation when she's out of town. Less guilt because it's free and nearby, but far enough away from the laundry to immerse ourselves in something restorative.
This is so important and I find so hard (still) to explain to people. They'll ask, "What did you do on your vacation?" And I say, "Nothing." By which I mean, I laid on the beach and read. Sometimes I interrupted my reading with a walk along the beach, not for exercise, but to look at things and maybe put my body in a slightly different position for a while. But everything else I did was a short interruption in what is otherwise, just reading. And it's glorious. And necessary. And it is not at all 'traveling.'
I do love to read and can get absorbed pretty easily in regular life, so when I go on an absorption vacation I actually prefer not to read because I want to give my brain a break from processing incoming information. We use beach vacations and camping for this purpose. The ocean and a fire are the only things I've ever found that truly turn my brain to neutral. I can watch them for hours without many thoughts or any worries entering my brain. My husband and I sit, stare, crack an occasional beer and just let the world flow by. It's truly glorious.
One of the best absorption vacations I’ve ever taken was an Alaskan cruise. I knew I’d love the landscape, but what I didn’t anticipate was how much idle time I’d have to *read.* I’ll tell you what: having someone else worry about prepping meals and snacks while I sat in a lounger with a book and a blanket draped on my lap, coffee by my side, and watching the occasional whale surface? That was pretty nice.
Whenever I think of that trip, that’s what I remember: the peace of diving into page after page, and having long dinners with my people every night after *they* experienced their own absorption activities during the day. Bliss!