Spontaneity

I was thinking about our latest trip. It was a testament to spontaneity. There was a risk right up until the last moment that the trip would be suddenly radically changed and none of that would be in any of our control. I love this sort of trip. I love staying up at night and decoding the route and activities for the next day and then that plan lasting only as far as the first encounter. This is not a trip for everyone, as you have to walk into it knowing that you have to relax into it. You have to take a dive into the unknown!

It's been a long time since I could exercise my spontaneous genes. Really this is the first time that it has even been possible for probably 20 years. Levi is old enough now and flexible enough as a part of his nature to make it a pleasure rather than a drain.

Before that it was just too hard. Michaela and Robert are not really spontaneous people, esp not quickly. They were not people that loved it when I invited people for dinner (that night)! Oh they were great about letting me do it but they didn't really like it. We went on lots of really fun vacations but they were fairly planned.

Before that there was Frank. Now there is nothing like serious illness to put a cramp in spontaneous holidays. Vacation with Frank had to be planned to a degree that I think most people would never understand. In fact life with Frankie got like that. Planned and then re-planned and then checked again. If things fell apart on our trip the week before last, then we got cold, or had to stay in a hotel, or went home early. All just stories to tell down the track tastefully exaggerated by the requisite 10%! If things fell apart around Frank, someone died, or could have or nearly did. I have only really thought about the level of stress involved in that sort of living now, well down the track. I don't live that stress now and I am very grateful. I am so happy that the stress is down, but I would go back to that stress in a microsecond if only for a second more with Frank. One more impossible dream.