I’m on a work-lite vacation this month as I tour a few western states and enjoy downtime with the kids before school starts up again.
For part of the last week, we were in Bend, Oregon. What a peaceful, beautiful place! I love the Pacific Northwest. Last Christmas break we spent a few days in and around Portland, but this time we enjoyed the evergreen-y goodness of Central Oregon.
People there ride bikes a lot. They mountain bike on nearby trails. They bike through the parks. And they bike around town. There are a lot of bike stores. One second-hand store even has bikes mounted sideways to the porch posts!
One evening, when the lightly pine-scented air cooled, we headed out to spend some time at a park near the river. The kids climbed the creative play structure (shaped like a pirate ship). Tourists and locals floated down the peaceful river nearby on kayaks, inflatable boats, and intertubes . . . at one point we event spotted three girls drifting along on an inflatable mattress!
The mellow evening traffic on the nearby residential road was quiet, but at one point it surprised us with a chorus of laughter and shouts from a passing pedal-powered trolley bus.
Of course this town has a pedal-powered trolley bus. Biking seems a point of pride here.
It used to be that I looked forward to visiting big cities. So exotic, so exciting, each with a different skyline, local accent, story, and ambiance.
These days I still appreciate the bustle and romance of the city (I’m a proud citizen of Los Angeles county, after all) but when it comes time to take a break, I appreciate the quiet of trees.
My son Energy Boy and I sat with with the trees, next to a trail that he didn’t feel like hiking. We imagined growing roots from our feet deep into the earth and letting the ground support us. His ever-moving feet slowed their swinging and held still. We sat together on a tree stump and simply breathed.
The roughness of bark, the stickiness of pine sap, the dust on my shoes and in the air, the sun beating down hot enough to make shade a blessing at mid day but cooling to let us feel like we’d been gifted a perfect evening. The coarse feeling and pleasant scent of grass against my ankles when I sit to roll the ball to my baby at the park–
I soak all of it in. My inner well is re-filled. My soul is rejuvenated.
It’s like I’m bottling summer moments the way I used to bottle peaches for the winter. I’m filling my mental photo album so I can flip through it and take delight on days that are less warm and colorful.
I’ve shared with you some of what’s feeding me creatively. What have you been up to lately? How are you re-filling your creative well?
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