Since this won't align in the centre (er!), I'll just write from the centre too.
The origin of holiday was Holy Day.
Nothing much holy about it any more,
unless you decide to go to the Holy Land,
a trip I've never understood
because it always seems to be undertaken by churchy retirees
who then inflict their pictures ad nauseam, complete with
running commentary:
"Look, there's the head of Jesus!"
Nothing is questioned,
not even seventeen femur bones of Lazarus
or somebody.
I once saw a mummified Pope, but I forget
where it was, maybe
Venice. I loved
Venice
in spite of its stinking waters
and guys in striped shirts with barge poles,
but Florence (Firenze!) blew me away
with its San Marco, its
gold-lined cathedral.
If God lived anywhere,
it was here.
David, a must-see
was extremely tall
with a huge head
and (in spite of all the fuss)
a very small penis
he was out of proportion
because everyone was looking "up"
This year it's a driving trip to Alberta
a place we lived a long time ago
and didn't see:
Moses mountains
bighorn sheep all over the road
moose and elk and the occasional shy white
mountain goat
and even, once,
a wolf bounding out in front of our car
on the highway at night,
its feral eyes lit up like incandescent disks.
I want to get away from it all,
the whining I've done lately, which makes me ashamed,
for surely the only direction is forward.
They say
and maybe "they" are right
that a vacation
(origin: vacate or vacant or evacuate or vacuum cleaner - heh-heh, sorry, I made that one up)
that a vacation, no matter how modest
is a way of hitting the reset button of the mind
Letting a fresh breeze blow through all those sizzling neurons
Eating things you're not spozed to
and not caring.
And that brings me to another subject: in a memoir I read not long ago,
by never-mind-who or you'd
wonder if he really wrote it,
which he did,
the subject said he was mastering the art of "caring
while not caring"
I liked it
though could only get it
with that part of my brain or liver
that gets things
not careless, per se
but perhaps carefree
and isn't that the ideal state
in which to go on vacation?
