Hello reader,
I’ve always found that prattling on about summer plans quickly devolves into a game of one-upsmanship.
So, what are you doing this summer?
Do you have summer plans?
How do you summer? (gosh no, not the verb!)
Starting with the expectation that one is able to afford a scenic change, a second house, has a good enough relationship with their relatives to be invited somewhere… there’s just a whole lot of assumptions in this set of questions.
It grates me.
It probably started in elementary school, where it seemed like everyone went to visit grandparents in Florida. My grandparents lived in Queens, in the house where they raised my father and his three sisters. My grandparents wouldn’t know how to vacation; they worked and occasionally took in a Broadway show.
There’s a socioeconomic assumption in “summering”. Or “wintering”. I find it othering.
Also, I hate having to perform my plan for another’s endorsement. Because the question is most often asked if:
- They don’t know what else to ask me about (“what would you like me to know about you?” is always welcomed…)
- They’re waiting to share their enviable plan
I don’t consider logistics conversation and I don’t want to fall into the trap of one-upsmanship. If I want to tell you what I’m doing this summer, I will! But, can you handle it? The conversation I’d really like to have?
I believe, deeply, in leisure. I believe in rest. I love growing new space by vacating the space I’ve been in. I’m for change and summer heat and fans.
But the way I think about leisure is more aligned with this Atlantic article by Arthur Brooks, which is a guide for getting vacating more deeply. Can you shift perspectives, be with folks you adore (including yourself), learn, pray, be in nature, and restore?
Because that’s the summer vacation I’m about.
Take me somewhere new, not as in “We did Rome, Madrid and Casablanca!” Don’t tell me about “doing” cities, tell me about what the cities did for you. I don’t want a travel itinerary, I want to know how you were moved.
Tell me about your plans for personal growth, what you’re good at, where you’re struggling and how you’d like to bolster those areas. Tell me how you want summer vacation to bring about change.
I’m spending this summer reconnecting with old friends. I’m going to Kripalu with my cousin, Chicago with an old college friend, Omega Institute to hang with my girl Tosha, and camping for the first time in 25 years with a friend who knows how to do that sort of thing. I’m staycationing with my kids, making our way through the NYT 100 best movies of the last 25 years.
My goals this summer: Reconnect with the people I love. Strengthen connections. The competitor in me will work to raise my pickleball DUPR score and learn more aerial yoga tricks. In 2025, I’ll lose that extra 20# that’s been plaguing me for the last 3 years. Give my kids some memorable experiences, and have some memorable experiences with and without them. Grow. Create more space. Raise my Oura resilience score to Excellent for 10 days this summer.
What if we started talking about summer that way? Growing the emotional connections, and physical and mental health challenges. Now that’s a conversation I’d like to have.
With love,
Allison
PS: I think the vacation share really started to bug me during the pandemic, when I could hear the “Monday shares” my elementary school age kids were exposed to, as their Zoom classrooms were in my living room. This one spent the weekend in Paris, that one in the Bahamas, the other was spending the pandemic in Costa Rica. Now first, allow me to admit I was plenty jealous of all that travel. But also — weren’t we in a pandemic? And last, man — I hate that my children (and many others) didn’t have anything to ante in those conversations. I just hated the socioeconomic pressure to perform vacation. So, yeah.
