Traveling with a Magical and Revolutionary Device

Les Dia­blerets, Switzer­land, May 2010

My life is ter­ribly imbal­anced, and for that reason, every seg­ment of my day is rationed. For example, on my two hour com­mute, the 6 min­utes it takes me to walk between the parked car and the train is assigned to lis­tening to music and mental prepa­ra­tion for writing, which lasts 28 min­utes until the red line change.

You may imagine how I wel­comed the recent prospect of  10 days com­pletely to myself. The problem was how to squeeze as much living as pos­sible out of the experience.

the solu­tion to all our prob­lems, and the answer to all our prayers?

The plane ride was my first chal­lenge. I had seven hours in which I could pre­pare the second edi­tion of TWW, com­plete the fixes and rewrites for book two, or catch up on all the films I’ve missed this year. Unfor­tu­nately, I didn’t know how long our laptop bat­tery would last, and I feared having too much unpro­duc­tive sit­ting time.

And so, I con­tem­plated buying an iPad. 18 hours of bat­tery life could go a long way on such a trip, and I wouldn’t have to worry about dead flying time. It seemed a good, if expen­sive, tool to employ in the des­perate struggle against my dis­pro­por­tionate work/life balance.

I was on the brink of my making a deci­sion, and Sherri said non­cha­lantly, “You could read The Worm Ouroborus again. You keep saying you want to.”

Mag­ical & revolutionary

Her sug­ges­tion caused a shift in my thinking, and over the next day I real­ized why I’ve been so stressed and unhappy lately. It is partly that I’m trying to live three dif­ferent lives with very dif­ferent aspi­ra­tions and require­ments: great father/husband, suc­cessful writer, and engaged cor­po­rate employee, and partly because I’ve had no time to rest and recharge in any sig­nif­i­cant way.

It didn’t take me long to realize that buying a gadget that promises 18 hours of video and mil­lions of shallow games I would never play is not rest. What I need is not the promise of pro­duc­tivity or the promise of accom­plish­ment, what I need right now is to stop.

I feel like there is a proverb in there – not about self-fulfillment, but some­thing like, “A timely sug­ges­tion may save a wise wife 700 dollars.”

So I didn’t buy an iPad. Instead, I dug out my old, worn copy of Les Mis­érables. Today I went for a walk and sat in a quiet little wooded area at the base of the moun­tain, and got lost in the fas­ci­nating and philo­soph­ical world of Mon­seigneur Bien­venu, even­tu­ally fin­ishing the first book of the novel. It was exactly what I needed.

So far, here is how I’ve altered my plans this vacation:

What I had planned to do:

The pages turn just like a real book

• Study up on French for 4 hours in prepa­ra­tion for not sounding stupid
• Pre­pare the second edi­tion of The Whis­pering Walls
• Com­plete the rewrites and fixes for the sequel
• Bring the out­lines for books 3 and 4 to 70% completion
• Watch all of the films I’ve missed this year
• Read 2 novels
• Exercise/run

What I have done:

Read­able in any light

• Wander a for­eign vil­lage for 4 hours, taking pic­tures (the most relaxing thing for me)
• Speak what little French I know, freely and without wor­rying about it
• Hike for an hour before dinner
• Run an exer­cise trail with Sherri
• Sit alone with my favorite book for sev­eral hours, in one of the most beau­tiful and peaceful places I’ve ever been
• Write this blog post while watching para­sailers descend from the peaks above and land just out­side my window

As for the bat­tery life on the laptop, I still haven’t found out. On the plane, it never left the bag.