Vacation State - Look Up

Look Up - beautiful balloons in my back yard

It's been three months since I wrote about my Vacation State of Mind project - a project in which I decided I would pretend I was on vacation for at least a moment each day and look at the things around me as though I'm a visitor instead of a person anxious to go somewhere else.

I meant to post pictures and updates of my Vacation State project several times but, well, I haven't. But I am posting something now!

Here's something that has put me in a Vacation State of Mind many, many times since I started my project - I can always get a Vacation State moment when I Look Up.
Look Up at the ceiling of the Pantages Theatre in Minnapolis

Let me explain...
I spent a January Term in England back in 1996 and one of the things I remember most about that trip was something a tour guide said. I was on a group tour of Oxford. As we were walking around Oxford our tour guide said that one thing we should remember to do as we walked through Oxford is to look up. When you look up, he said, you see all sorts of great things in the architecture of the buildings. You might notice paintings on a ceiling. Gargoyles looking at you from above. All sorts of cool things that you would not have noticed if you kept looking at the things at eye level.

Look Up really hit home for me while walking through one of the buildings. I looked up and saw a bust of author J.R.R. Tolkien. Our tour guide mentioned Tolkien studied at and later was a professor at Oxford and I realized that I was standing right where Tolkien may have walked. The realization gave me the chills and is one of my favorite memories of my month-long trip to England.

Since then, I've made a point to look up and see what wonderful things I can discover in building architecture. I haven't found any busts of Tolkien but I have discovered amazing details in buildings - dates and names above doors, gothic creatures carved of marble, fancy filigree trim at the top of buildings - wherever I travel now. It's pretty easy for me to imagine I'm on vacation to some exotic location when I look up and see wonderful architectural details on old buildings.

But what about when I'm not in a great town with historical buildings?  When I'm in a town where the architecture is new like my home town of Richfield? I find that if I take a moment to look up I see the sky, the clouds, maybe the sun shining through trees and those views also remind me that wonderful vacation like moments can be had right at home.

Take a moment to enjoy a Vacation State of Mind - Look up!
Sculpture Garden at Anderson Center in Red Wing, MN
Double Rainbow - another Vacation State wonder in my own back yard









Comments

Lultzeslie Sch said…
This is an inspiring post. I try to do the same thing but it is easy to forget. I have seen lovely details along Division Street in Northfield.

Thanks for the reminder!
June 13, 2013 at 7:45 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Change in Plans

Image
My kids, Rose and Ryan, started a theater day camp today called Young People's Theater Workshop (YPTW). YPTW is a program put on through the Northfield Arts Guild  during which the kids, grouped by age, write a play, rehearse it, and then perform it at the end of the three week session. Rose loves the camp and this is her fourth year. In her first year I saw a huge change in her confidence from the beginning of the session to the end. She has grown each year since and I expect she will benefit from the camp again this year. Ryan has never been in YPTW and has been somewhat reluctant to go. But, to save on gas (it's a 30 mile round trip to town), make our schedule easier and give me time to work, Owen and I decided that Ryan should give YPTW a try. Given how good the program has been for Rose, we're hoping Ryan will benefit from the program as well. I dropped the kids off this morning and right off the bat Ryan found two friends from his class at Greenvale. He found
Read more

Making tracks

Image
I just looked out my office window and saw my snowshoe tracks in the snow. For some reason they surprised me. Seeing them I had concrete evidence that I actually have been getting out on my snowshoes every day. That I've actually been going somewhere. And, for some reason, I find this comforting. I've been fighting my 30 Days of Snowshoeing commitment and am kind of mad at myself for creating the challenge for myself. I haven't wanted to get out every day and snowshoe. It's cold outside. I don't like putting on my snowpants, my hat, scarf, gloves, jacket. Perhaps because I'm doing the challenge alone, unlike the 30 Days of Biking challenges where hundreds of other people biked every day and helped motivate each other, I don't really feel like it matters that I'm doing this. And I've lost momentum and motivation and simply want to sit inside and read a book. Or sleep. Or watch Monk and Cake Boss on Netflix. But I keep snowshoeing. Every day. Ev
Read more

A Little Bike Schooling on the B Ride

I'll be honest with you, my two main motivations for riding my bike any distance are coffee and conversation. A good workout is also a motivator but going really fast is not. I'm more of a slow and steady - okay, really slow and not that steady - sort of bicyclist. But for months now I've wanted to join in on a group ride. From what I've heard people ride their bikes, chat away the miles and stop somewhere for a cup of coffee mid-way or at the end of the ride. Sounds like my kind of ride. Right? Maybe not. Most of the group rides I've heard about promise average speeds of 18 to 20 miles per hour or more and go 40 or more miles. Some sound brutal and talk about hill climbs and sprints. Granted, these are the "A" rides, rides geared towards competitive riders, riders who want to push their limits. "B" rides are supposed to be slower, "C" rides even more so but I've seen some C rides that sound too fast for me, some B rides with leng
Read more