My week away...

Should I take a break? This is the question playing on my mind at the moment.  I have been busy all week being busy with going away.  I have ironed a hundred different pieces of clothing, tried on at least as many and rejected almost as much.  Funny how summer clothes seem to shrink during the winter and when you take them out of storage they all seem much tighter than last year. It happens in the winter too. My cupboards have these magical powers to shrink my clothes!

Anyway, to get back to the question playing on my mind, should I take an official blog break? I am going to the States on Friday and for sure I won't be writing on my travel day since when I arrive I have dinner planned with friends and then I figure jet lag will kick in and I'll need to sleep.  The next day I travel again to Ohio where I meet up with my kids, the rest of my family and all these wedding guests staying in my hotel.  The hotel does not have free Wi-Fi and I don't think I'll even bring my computer.  I took it on holiday last time and though I love having it with me, I found it a real pain to have to shlep the heavy computer, the wires, adaptors, chargers, etc. and don't see me doing it again.  So, unless some kind benefactor wants to buy me an iPad for my birthday, this is going to make it difficult to keep up-to-date with my writing.

On Sunday is the wedding I'm attending in Ohio. This looks like an entire day and evening business and my intention is to drink as much champagne as is being served.  Nice thing about Jewish weddings is that there's always plenty of drink since so few people drink at all.  There is never a chance of running out and often champagne is served freely. When I was a teenager I often made friends with bartenders at weddings, bar mitzvahs and big parties.  This ensured that no one questioned my under age status and that I got served super strong drinks.  At least I don't have to bat my eyelashes at bartenders anymore.  There's absolutely no chance that I will be mistaken for an underage drinker!

So, so far I won't be writing on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday I am traveling again - this time from Ohio to Connecticut.  I won't be arriving back at my brother's house until late and though he has a computer I can use, I don't see it happening.  This means that I might, and I say might, write on Tuesday or Wednesday, though on Wednesday I am driving to New York in the evening after visiting my dad all day, so no computer access there. Thursday is a day of sightseeing in Manhattan with Ralph.  I see this as the first of our genuine holiday days and then on Friday we are flying back to London.

It begins to look as if I won't have time to sit and write any blog entries for a full week.  Having made an undertaking to write every day I don't feel so easy with this. I am not great at regular commitments.  I usually start with great positive intention (hence the name of my blog) and keep to agreements for a while and slowly things start to slip. This has been a pattern throughout my life.  I am very good at starting projects. I have half-knitted sweaters, unfinished paintings, partly read books and numerous other projects that I have begun with fantastic intentions and have then put down and failed to pick up again. I saw this happening when my internetservice was down.  I had gaps in my writing and began to fear that I wouldn't take it up again.  What kept me writing was the therapeutic quality it has for me and the fact that I think there are a few people regularly reading these random thoughts.

Speaking of which, I get very little, if any, feedback on my writing.  I occasionally get some comment from someone that lets me know I am not scattering these words into the air, but mostly I have no idea if anyone's listening, or cares.  Is this important?  I'm not sure.  When a friend refers to something that was in my blog I'm not sure whether to be flattered, embarrassed or nonchalant about the whole thing.  I do feel I reveal a lot of me in this writing and it's as if I'm standing naked in a shop window with one way glass.  You can see me, but I can't see you and unless you bang on the glass I can pretend no one's there.  Maybe pretending that there's no one there means I can be pretty honest with myself and express myself more openly.  I guess I love writing without self-consciousness, but I also love attention.  Maybe this is a win-win situation for me.  I write as if I am talking to myself and I get to do this in silence, so no one really knows how crazy I am.

I guess this is advance notice to me to take some pressure off.  If I manage to write an entry or two while I'm away, that's great, if not, that's also fine. I will try and write.  I will certainly take lots of photos and store up family moments for future appraisal, but mostly I want to enjoy the days away. 

Part of the purpose of this trip is to see my dad. Seeing him fills me with trepidation.  He's been very ill and is quite frail now.  I think I'm prepared for the fact that he won't know me, but I'm not really, not in my heart. I still find this symptom of his illness hard to deal with. At least I can sit with him and hold his hand.  I still need to do that.

It's so very good to have this blog as an outlet for my feelings.  It has been so good for me to be able to see myself in this new way.  I might take a few days off writing, but I do so enjoy this part of my day and I will try and make time and space to carry on.  Though if I don't, it's also OK.