Adulting: COVID and Vacations...

Simple truth: COVID has severely limited our ability to go on any relaxing vacations this year. But according to writer Karen Trefzger, we don’t need to completely miss out. In her blog article from No Sidebar, titled "Una Bella Vita," she beautifully illustrates how we can bring a holiday to our own home.

First, Trefzger wants us to identify a dream trip that cannot happen:

Maybe a trip to Tuscany is part of your dream. So wherever you are, you’re longing for Tuscany. Maybe you feel cheated by the fact that you can’t go.

Then she urges us to dissect the dream and learn what it is that we are longing for:

What does Tuscany offer that my hometown doesn’t? Perhaps the appeal is the warm climate, the rural vineyards and olive groves, the slower pace of life, the wine and the food, the language, the colors, the art, or the ancient buildings.

She rightfully points out that even if we took a trip to Tuscany, we would eventually have to leave. So, what can we do? And here’s the gem in her article: we can seek to make our home “the environment we yearn to be in.”

Trefzger continues with the Tuscany example, giving a list of things we can do around our house to, in essence, bring what we crave about Tuscany to our own home. And these are doable activities. Maybe for you it's not Tuscany, but Mexico or the UK or Asia. No matter the area, our ideas do not need to be incredibly elaborate or very costly:

Can we watch a foreign opera or documentary on TV?

Have coffee outside on the deck?

Listen to Irish songs?

​Make flour tortillas by hand?

Finally learn to use chopsticks?

Light our own Chinese lanterns?

Just. Slow. Down. (Like we would on a vacation, when we are away from work?)

And, once more, I’m discovering the importance of living life intentionally, and therefore, living life richly. Trefgzer wisely urges us to get to the bare bones of what we desire concerning our dream trips and then to purposefully add these elements into our daily lives. No passport required. This beautiful, encouraging article offers such a positive outlook, and I highly recommend reading it if you have the chance.