New York Times columnist Frank Bruni does his summer holidays like my family and I: all together, in a beach house, for an extended period.
Here he is:
“EVERY summer for many years now, my family has kept to our ritual. All 20 of us — my siblings, my dad, our better halves, my nieces and nephews — find a beach house big enough to fit the whole unruly clan. We journey to it from our different states and time zones. We tensely divvy up the bedrooms, trying to remember who fared poorly or well on the previous trip. And we fling ourselves at one another for seven days and seven nights.”
Why do we do it? Why do we stay so long when – to be honest – it ain’t always that easy?
To be there for the good stuff.
Bruni writes:
“With a more expansive stretch, there’s a better chance that I’ll be around at the precise, random moment when one of my nephews drops his guard and solicits my advice about something private. Or when one of my nieces will need someone other than her parents to tell her that she’s smart and beautiful.”
He makes the key point: to truly be present, we need time and space. Actually we need extra time and space, so that we can just be there, present and ready for when life unfurls.
I think a lot of our lives are stressfully spent trying to make quality time. I’ve pointed out how imperative