Although I am pretty sure I will regret some things said in this piece. And as I still write this the fresh ink stains my hands and clots on my pen’s tip because it just leaked, MASSIVELY. Dammit, who knows anymore.
I have been a few days away from the Bay Area for Labor Day holiday, in South Lake Tahoe. It’s still a foreign place for me, for being so close, and I haven’t been since I was eleven. It was the year I went rafting with my family in Truckee, and the boat almost ran me over. But so far, it’s been great. For so short a getaway I’ve really done much–beach side bicycling (and beach side), paddle boarding despite turning down Matt’s multiple pleas then demands to make me try it (“they always say you’ll regret the things you didn’t do, P!”), and getting to enjoy a hearty Mac N’ Cheese to a full set of Oasis covers you requested in Heavenly Village. For so short a peace of mind, I’m not going to ignore the fact that there is still a lot of work to be done when I come back home, back to work.
I’m also a natural worry wort, so I took time off and out with a spoonful of salt– and didn’t worry. Yeah yeah, the whole “wherever you go, there you are” thing resonates that whole work-hard-play-hard ethic and regret most of us might feel on vacation. But you shouldn’t. You’re there, out in the world, away from the office or store or class– and not that work. You don’t take those office hours with you, these are your own. Yes, you’ll worry when you’re back in school or in your cubicle or wherever, but the best thing at the end of the day is that you still are you– you’re not enslaved. Taking holiday, especially when you’re a driven, dedicated and diligent (no alliteration intended) person at work, shouldn’t make you feel guilty. It’s natural to have your time, regroup yourself. Then again, what you do in the present, incidentally, does hurt your future, the future which becomes your present state on a Tuesday morning, wondering what happened and why didn’t you take that small chance to actually do something fun and worthwhile. Don’t be that guy. Don’t obsess over staplers and get uptight over all the work you did do and CHOSE to do it because nothing else excites you. As a great job should excite you in all the same respects, especially one you love doing as I do, just remember to simply not sweat the small stuff. In the moment is what you’re doing, so don’t be afraid to live in the moment. It’s the easiest thing you can do. The past is the past, dammit.
As a writer, traveling makes you grow at this skill, simply in just re-exciting your senses, shaking off that numbness of your usual environment for new things. Even though I didn’t hop a plane to Barcelona or road-trip it down to Mexico or something of The Inbetweeners recipe for disastrous but great times– it was still fantastic and worthy of writing about. Don’t stress on going big, but rather just make big of even the smallest things! I may not do much, but I make the best of where I do go and enjoy all the opportunities that follow from it. Really, try paddle boarding! It’s a good start for me personally, a halfway point between my true goal of surfing– despite not knowing how to swim. Never thought I would do it until this trip. Open the doors to your own adventures, as little as they may be.
This would not have been the vacation I needed without the last-minute savior of staying at Basecamp Hotel(Thanks Booking!). Just on the state line, you’re lost in complete wild bliss, the comforts of cabin-perfect decor and rustic charm of camping at its most elegant. For a regular stay, you can get the luxury of the Great Outdoors with quirky bunker and even indoor-camping themed rooms with survival guides replacing bedside Bibles, and happy hour at the mini bar which you can enjoy there or in the patio, beneath a great tree OR on the hot tub on the rooftop looking out into the Heavenly mountain tops. You can even ask for a s’mores kit and roast away at the fire pit in the patio, stay out drinking up wine with your campfire delicacies while making friends with Frenchman just coming back from Burning Man. From the accounts of David, Maxime, and Giulle, I wouldn’t rule out Burning Man as the adventure of summer 2015.
All this came from a slight disappointment from not setting out to my first choice of a getaway, Santa Barbara. But disappointment is natural, and dwelling on it is choice… don’t let the regrets hold you down in where you do end up. I ended up in the woods and as Thoreau put it,
I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
I did what at I could at this living thing. I didn’t write anything substantial other than that there’s still, as always, a lot to write about.
Stay blue, Lake Tahoe.
A Week by the Bay 