Vacare
Vacare: Latin. To be empty, free.
I used to think of "vacation" more in terms of where we're going and what we'll be doing there instead of what I'm vacating–the places, faces, tasks, and routines that I leave behind while galavanting elsewhere. I empty my work calendar of meetings, free myself from Slack with an “Away” status, leave the company laptop at home, and off we go. We empty parts of our home as well, most notably our pooch who goes to “doggy camp,” because Home Alone with a canine won’t end well.
We've been taking a leisurely drive along the Oregon Coast, heading south from Cannon Beach after a lovely lunch of pizza and salad followed by some antique shopping and a restrained indulgence of a chocolate confection whose taste stuck more than its name.
Mid May weather, particularly on this weekend, is far from what I consider spring; it's chilly, cloudy, and interspersed with downpours that are great for getting bug goop off the windshield, but not so wonderful for wandering around outdoors.
But the beaches are anything but deserted. Small groups of family and friends wander, some with canines who are beside themselves with the freedom of roaming what must seem like endless sea and sand.
We stopped at three different beaches along the way; more sand time in one day than the previous year, which has me thinking as much about what I'd been doing in those past twelve months instead of practicing the humble magic of dry footed beach combing.
The Airbnb where we're staying has no WiFi. Nancy mentioned that "feature" when she made the booking, and I must have not heard. Two months ago, that would have been a deal breaker, and I find myself amused more than anything that I'm appreciative of the chance to be offline. To cut that data umbilical cord seems as effortless as it is oddly liberating.
It's not that I completely disconnected. I did pick up a commemorative sticker of a bonfire with the caption "Logged off: Manzanita, Oregon", as I am spending much more time not cradling a device or poring over a keyboard. Writing this missive doesn't count.
Where one goes for vacation affects what you vacate. Not having WiFi access means activities that rely on broadband stay at home, along with the fuzzy slippers that I constantly wear around the house but won’t fit in the overnight bag. The woobie for naps stays behind, but there are cozy throws at our weekend chalet. It may lack connectivity, but it offers a proper wood-burning stove with a clever gadget that circulates air around the exhaust pipe. The sloping roofs become huge sounding boards for the coastal spring rain, a different sound of the sea meeting land.
Highway 101 winds along the Pacific Coast, ducking inland around places like Tillamook, but for the most part it's the ocean, rocks, and beaches scrolling by. I have vacated my habits and my napping couch, acceding to the flow of the road, talking about the weather and hiking boots with passers by.
I have also vacated the itinerary that used to form the table of contents of a trip out of town. Am I taking the drift principle too far? We are constrained by road, geography, and retail, but even the north-south bounds of a highway offer options and choice, with any urgency coming from the human side.
I find myself at a picnic table outside a roadside cidery, watching the slow tango of traffic in a 25 MPH zone with clusters of pedestrians—human and canine. I'm witnessing others' drift in the main thoroughfare of Yachats, ignorant of their actual intent and destinations. One person’s wandering could look like a vectored route, and the reverse would hold true.
Among the day’s highlights is watching a border collie treat a block of wood like a chew toy. I guess their humans were okay with that; they disposed of what remained of the wood, but I see smaller pieces scattered around two tables over. Couples and families with their canine companions make the bulk of the foot (and paw) traffic, and I’m grateful for that slower tempo before the tourist season’s crescendo hits.
What is the purpose, the work to be done? Even asking that is something I try to step away from—at least for the weekend. Not out of rejection or the embrace of some anti-pattern, but as a kind of sabbatical from engineering. A problem statement hunting for something to fix is no more enlightened than a solution in search of a problem—both are equally superfluous here.
I can’t say that there is sloth in this drift; driving up and down winding highways with vacillating speed limits and passive-aggressive Nevadan tailgaters requires a modicum of effort. Tuning into the ambience of the restaurants, shops, and the viewpoints takes concentration. Sharing a magnificent chocolate chip cookie that we’d been saving since breakfast involves just enough coordination to avoid spilling crumbs. Work is not work today.
11 hours after we headed out in the morning, we're back at our Airbnb. As we were pulling up, I noticed that we listened to over 70 songs during our time on the road, all from Nancy's phone, hand picked and downloaded, no Spotify here. She's the DJ and navigator, as well as the curator of vintage and antique curios.
I've spent more than half my life as her spouse, and I feel an indescribable gratitude for her putting up with my peccadillos for all that time, not to mention the wonderfully odd things she's turned me onto in music, art, literature, philosophy, food and drink, culture—essentially crafting the diorama of my life. During one stretch of the drive, we absorbed the obtuse, pastoral beauty of A Beard of Bees, the second LP by Kiwi experimentalists This Kind of Punishment, and Nancy’s decades-long love of that album becomes something I also get to cherish.
On the morning that we return to reoccupy our habits and obligations, we manage to beat the crowd at a local eatery whose high ratings are backed up by its popularity, not to mention the warm service, warmer coffee, and top notch brunch fare.
We then take the windier path home, taking the hairpins with more care than aggression, while we discuss the differences between Nancy’s Masters thesis project of analyzing content and context of recorded music for library collection management with the industrial-scale, bot-powered scrape-and-churn processing of Spotify. Markets shift, economies grind, and people are always the grist; yet I’m smiling into the tight turns, grateful for the moment.
Vacare: To be empty. It’s less about a void, and more about making space. For observation, appreciation, connection, and gratitude. The freedom is being able to notice and to celebrate with subjective gradients like significance and impact gently set aside. And what one vacates, one eventually reoccupies.
We should get back in plenty of time to spring our pup from boarding before they close. Naps also await thereafter.
