My August semi-sabbatical staycation is on. I'll be working one week this month - the rest I'm taking off to spend time reading, hanging in the garden, playing with my cameras, touring around town, spending QT with family, friends, the husband, the cats - and with me! This is a new first and one I've been dreaming about ever since visiting Paris in August many years ago - and experiencing a city filled with more foreigners than French as all the Parisians closed up shop and headed out of town for a month long vacation.
Up until this year, with the American "work-work-work, busy-busy, stay-connected 24/7" work culture as it is - it felt impractical and perhaps, as a consultant, unwise to implement a similar type of break. People/organizations seem to have such a hard time unplugging here. Delineating between on and off, work and non-work, plugged and unplugged.
While I love my iWhatevers to connect, produce and create - I'm also the kind of person who operates best with periods of focused work balanced with periods of spacious "me-time". Time to slow down, unplug a bit, reflect, create for the sake of creating, putz, daydream, etc. When I have that balance - I'm a better coach, wife and person to be around. Period. Without it - I get cranky, uncreative, a little angry, and generally unsatisfied with my lot in life. My productivity wanes. As does the power and impact of practicing daily gratitude.
I usually work this "me-time" in by setting aside two to three weeks throughout the year as "project" weeks. The juiciest part about these weeks for me is to not schedule any meetings or coaching appointments. Projects range from home-projects - like spring cleaning, to work-projects- like setting up this blog, working on the paperless office, creating a collage, and so on.
I'm never entirely unplugged though during those project weeks. I'm still reading and responding to emails and calls. It's heaven enough to have the appointment free time to do what I darn well want to. To be FREE ( a huge value of mine).
So this year - with no official vacations planned - the siren call of a Parisian style "gone for the month of August" unplugged sabbatical-staycation proved too hard to resist. While a whole month off would have been divine, the more practical way to do this was to schedule three weeks off and one week on at work. (Maybe next year I'll go for the month!)
One week in - and I'm finally getting around to posting again. The last few pics you've seen are from the summer session of the Seasons of Filoli photography class - a series of four classes spanning winter, spring, summer and fall - taught by Susan Rosner I've learned a lot about photography over the series - and interestingly enough - about myself. The series started in the fall of 2011 - and I remember being so disappointed with my photographs from that first class. Lots of unfocused pics. Not a lot of great composition. My attention during the class felt scattered. A need to "get something" out of that class - a few perfect pictures? a lot of learning? a great experience? - actually led to me creating a crappy outcome. I'm also not a big fan of crowds. I knew this - but felt it more acutely taking pics in a garden filled with all those "pesky" visitors getting in the way. ;-)
I've also started to dabble more with photo editing. These that I'm sharing are some of my first more rigorous attempts at that. Still lots to learn (and s/w apps to invest in) - but it's fun. In fact, in the last class, Susan made a comment which stuck in my mind. She said when she takes a photo - she's taking it with the edited end product already in mind. By knowing what she can do with editing tools - she takes a photo that can be edited to get to the end product she has in mind. I sure would love to have the skills and knowledge to do that one day too.
In the mean time, I'm happy to be at this beginner's stage. Soaking up learning as I go, taking pics here and there, and enjoying a long coveted and first of (hopefully) many more August summer sabbaticals to come.