Slack time

I seem to have been avoiding vacations lately, taking less time each year, dragging a laptop and cell phone everywhere, just in case. But I broke down and took a few days off in Maine this week, leaving the portable electronics at home. And the world seems to have kept up its regular rotation, even without me working the crank. I don't know why this should come as a surprise to me, considering that I fully expect the tide to rise and fall on schedule off Wells Beach whether I am there to watch it or not.

But we give so much to our jobs, if they engage us--all that time and sweat, all the plotting and the brainstorms. It should, by rights, all go to the devil as soon as we hit the outskirts of town. And the many places that try to do public radio without me--VPR, NHPR, WBUR, Maine Public Broadcasting, WAMU--they all (from my highway listening) seem to muddle through somehow. I can't explain it; I'll just have to rest up a little and give the matter some thought.