WRY BREAD: A Slice of My Life in Pursuit of Dough

This Workaholic’s Idea of a Vacation

 Is a Real Bargain That Everyone Can Afford!

By Gail Harlow

t was 11:30 on Friday night, and I was still at the office, working late and exhausted. At the moment, Paris seemed a better place to be. Though I’ve never been to Paris, I carry postcard images of the Eiffel Tower, bridges spanning the Seine, Montmartre atop a hill, in my mind like a subliminal travel brochure that I take out and flip through whenever I find myself wishing I were someplace else. Anywhere but here.

    Many people take at least one vacation every year—some take several, planning seasonal escapes—a 14-day bike trip through the Loire Valley in spring, the shore house in summer, Venice and Verona in the fall, Florida in winter—throughout the year. We’ve all overheard colleagues talking about their trips— planning them beforehand, showing off photos and souvenirs, complaining about long waits at the airport—in the elevator or on lunch breaks at work.

     Me? I’m a workaholic, which is why I’m still hunched over a computer at 11:30 this Friday night. For a period of six years, my idea of travel was commuting seven hours round trip, from the suburbs of Philadelphia to Manhattan and back every day to and from work. These days I mostly commute from my bed to my computer, and I can tell you there’s something to be said for putting some distance between your work life and your home life. Maybe that’s why I suddenly feel such a desperate need to get away from it all. +

      The first few years of our marriage, neither my husband nor I were making much money, but we still set money aside to take a vacation. Both of us treasured golden memories of family vacations when we were young, and the “pursuit of happiness” in the form of a summer vacation was an “inalienable right” we’d been raised to expect. Our first vacation together was the best, combining the beauties of nature with the romance of cosmopolitan cityscapes. We roughed it, camping by a stream, and rode the Cog Railway up the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Our faces covered in soot from the steam engine, we were awestruck by the barren expanse of inhospitable grandeur at the summit. The next day, we toured the civilized sights of Montreal. We ended our week’s sojourn under the eaves of a quaint, red-roofed hotel on a crooked, cobble-stoned street in old Quebec. The following year, we drove our Peugeot to Vermont and stayed for a week at a rustic inn, eating plump blueberry muffins for breakfast, playing poor tennis, antiquing, working hard at relaxing. We still own a wood-framed mirror, which we purchased at Agape Antiques in a nearby small town. A wooden salad bowl bought at a craft shop on that trip is another reminder of those carefree times—the salad days of our marriage.

     After those two trips, life got more complicated for us, money became more of an issue, and we stopped saving for vacations. I became more involved in my career, and other expenses took priority.  Now, looking back, on this Friday night, I realize I haven’t had a proper vacation in more than 15 years.

     Judging by the statistics, I suspect I’m in the minority. According to the Travel Industry Association of America, in 1999 Americans spent $520 billion on travel expenses—$81.4 billion of that amount on travel abroad. In a poll conducted by Travel Weekly, “the chance to relax and get rid of stress “ was cited as the top reason people have for taking vacations, beating out the desire for new experiences, expanding cultural horizons, and making new friends. “Work hard, play hard,” my brother always says, and he does. But I wonder, if our lives are so stressful that we feel the need to escape them with such regularity, why don’t we think about looking for relief closer to home?

     A prominent official in Philadelphia once gave me a very wise piece of advice: “Most people come here every day, and they don’t notice the beautiful buildings,” she said of the commuters who stream into the city from the suburbs every weekday. “‘Look up’ is my advice to people walking around the city.” She is an architecture buff, and she knows that there are buildings and sculptures in Philadelphia with historic and artistic value to rival the treasures of all of the capitals of Europe rolled into one. Her remark doesn’t just pertain to Philadelphians, however: no matter where we live and work, we too often tend to overlook the wonders that surround us.

     If we follow her advice in its broadest sense, we will not just look up but around us with the wide-open eyes of a tourist at all the odd and amusing sights and the amazing diversity of people we see in our workaday lives. If we bring the same sense of adventure, the same spirit of play, to our work that we bring to our vacations, not only will we have more fun and do a better job, but maybe we won’t need to take so many expensive trips. I’ll go a step further and suggest keeping a “travel journal,” even walking around with one of those cheap, disposable cameras for a week. Looking through the lens of a camera will force you to focus on the details of your life; you’ll find there are photo ops everywhere.

      Having been born in Germany and lived overseas for the first 10 years of my life, my wanderlust was sated early. That foreign experience has given me an odd outsider’s perspective. No matter where I am, I do tend to look around with the unjaded eyes of a tourist most of the time. Thanks to the ideas I wrestle with and the people I meet, I feel like I’m taking fascinating journeys in my work everyday.

     Still, from time to time, I find myself eyeing the suitcase I have stored under my bed with longing and, yes, an awakening sense of wanderlust in my heart. Is there a round-trip ticket to Paris in my future? If there is, it’s long overdue!

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Gail Harlow is the Founding Editor of MAKING BREAD Magazine. E-mail her with your comments at gail@makingbreadmagazine.com.

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