I’ve had some fabulous and lavish trips to various NA cities [fave: San Francisco] but my ideal holiday is still camping. This preference probably came about initially because of my misanthropic/introverted tendencies [I'm totally the old lady who's going to be screaming at kids to get off her lawn] but has had additional, less grumpy-sounding benefits!
This might be a little TOO much significance
You know what makes movies like “Castaway” so interesting? It’s how everyday objects take on a greater significance. Tom Hanks’ volleyball buddy is a good example. Compare Wilson to a rack of gleaming generic volleyballs at SportChek and you’ll see what I mean. (I hope this doesn’t come off as a “What is the world coming to? Won’t somebody think of THE CHILDREN?” kind of rant, but I do feel overstimulated in our fair city sometimes, and Vancouver is a place where the natural world gets a front and centre seat [or, well, it's supposed to...perhaps a rant for another day]).
So Mr. Hanks removes generic volleyball #1 from its context of identical volleyballs and it becomes friend, proto-deity, and foil. Sure, we say, he’s on a desert island practicing his own dentistry, he’s gonna end up chatting with a volleyball. The question is: is it possible to create that kind of focus and absorption in an object WITHOUT having to crash land and grow a long beard? Because I have been cursed with a thin beard.
When I’m camping, partially out of necessity and partially out of urban-sensory-deprivation, everything takes on a greater significance. I can’t go to the Safeway to get another lemon, so I’d better be frugal with the lemon I have. My health-care options have been curtailed from a Shoppers’ Drug Mart and a walk-in clinic to the MedEvac helicopter [and believe me, I know I'm lucky to have that] so slipping and falling on a rock takes on an additional layer of potential disaster. For someone like myself, so quick to move on to the next exciting shiny thing, this mandated focus is incredibly healing. The ADHD city, while fun and intense, doesn’t often provide those opportunities naturally.
You can see where I’m going here: We have to create our own opportunities. When you pick up the volleyball in SportChek, without alarming the staff, can you slow down and really SEE it? [You don't have to talk to it.] Sure, you’re probably not going to slip and fall walking down Main Street, but are you paying attention to what you’re doing, or are you handing the ol’ cerebral cortex a double-helping of worry and projection? You can get a lemon at the corner store these days, so when you cut into a lemon at home, can you smell it and feel its cool nubbly skin with total presence of mind?
The shift from absence to presence does not have to wait for a holiday. Think of nature the way we usually think of it [unspoiled vistas, trees, &c.], realize that even an urban setting is OUR nature, and be in it with the same fullness that you would be on a rock in the middle of nowhere.