Happy Fourth of July! It’s time again for the Annual Summer Road Trip. Get out on the road and put your writing on hold.
At one time or another, we all say that we wish we had more time, but when you come right down to it, do you really want to spend more time working? What is it that you most like to do with your time? I think that putting aside your work and spending time with family, especially on a holiday weekend, is time well spent. And time away from your work can yield dividends when you return to your writing.
The traffic around the Fourth of July is always awful. As much as I love my adopted state of Virginia, I really hate being stuck in traffic in Virginia.
Most road trips I have been on over the last few years either start or end with our creeping along Interstate 95 and our wishing and hoping that the traffic would ease soon. Road trips are not what they used to be. That is, not unless you get far away from Interstate 95 that runs north and south along the East Coast of the U.S.
Many of the people most important to me live west of Washington, D.C. by several hundred miles. While my adult children are on the East Coast, most of the rest of my family live in the Midwest. And many of my husband’s family members live in North Carolina.
A long-time tradition among one side of my husband’s family is to meet in Western North Carolina during the week of the Fourth of July.
During the early part of the week of the Fourth, we drive south from Washington on Interstate 95 to I-85 in North Carolina and then west on I-40. And we just keep going, past Asheville, North Carolina; past Franklin, over three more mountains, and on to the little North Carolina town where my husband’s cousins gather every Fourth.
The small town was very isolated when my husband’s mother lived there as a child, but now good roads are plentiful, allowing for tourists and family alike to visit.
We gather at a cousin’s house on the lake, and catch up on the family news. We swap stories and cook food on the grill, but mostly we watch the little ones play in the sand pile or bob around on rafts in the lake. We marvel over the good health of the child who had been seriously ill, and we play (or watch) a marathon volley ball game.
The scenery and the family are worth the effort needed to get there, as well as any loss of time on my writing and other work. In fact, all of our our writing can benefit from our stepping away.
We will have a respite from the isolation of writing, and we can also recharge our creativity. There’s no place better to be lost in the moment and to stare into space than at a mountain lake.
If the Fourth is a holiday for you, I hope you can put your writing on hold and join others to celebrate, relax, and recharge.
Happy Fourth of July,
Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC www.nancywhichard.com