This was to be my first real vacation in several years. I usually wind up taking a “busman’s holiday,” tacking a few days for research onto a one-week holiday (Canadians don’t take vacations; we take holidays) or a few vacation days onto the end of a ten-day film shoot. But not this summer. This summer I was planning on taking a full two weeks of holiday, no work attached.
So there I am in Mt. Shasta, the most beautiful snow capped mountain soaring up above redwood pines and cedars. And there at my feet is a pen. A really good pen. I’m so far from any reasonable writing surface but there it is. I assume someone dropped it because it was broken or out of ink. Must be. A perfectly good pen wouldn’t wind up right at my feet in the forest.
But no; the pen works beautifully. It sits cool against the palm of my hand. I do have my notebook in my backpack; out of habit I always carry one. I put pen to paper. Two trees shoot up seemingly from one root. They’re called “splitters” around here, and the branches high above twist together… I write a passage…
This is not work.
I love this… you’re so right!